meklarian

vacation part 1 (bahamas, sea, st. thomas)

Some of you already know that I’ve been away on vacation nearly two weeks. I’ve been posting some pictures here and there, but here is a collection from the first part of the trip.

Day 1: Princess Cays, Eleuthera, Bahamas

This was the 1^st full day of the trip. I didn’t do much on this day, except hang out at the private beach owned by the princess cruise line. A striking feature of this beach is that the sand is completely white. My guess is that it is composed of crushed coral, although seashells are also another possibility. Individual grains of the stuff were quite prickly, in any case.

Day 2: At Sea (somewhere north of the Turks/Caicos)

My friend had her wedding this day at sea. Rather than disrupt her privacy, I’ll skip pictures of the wedding. I took some silly pictures this day, but most notable was a self-portrait outside my stateroom, and a picture of the sunset in the west.

This was a rather brilliant sunset, too. Vivid. Technically this was about 15 minutes before the actual sunset.

Day 3: St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands)

I took lots of silly pictures this day. Our tour took us to the Caribbean Amber Museum. After the museum, we walked around Haagensen House, a British Colonial building whose name I forget, and eventually made our way up to Blackbeard’s Lookout (or was it Castle?). Nice views of the harbor, but I wasn’t a big fan of the town. I tried a sample of some Conch when we had lunch. Tasted like really intense scallops. I can’t say that it was bad, or that I liked it. We’ll see.

Arrival in St. Thomas.

Traveler’s Palm. Festive!

Hibiscus, many of these were growing around the tour area.

I know now that this sinister looking kitchen gadget is called a Trivet, to protect tables from hot cookware.

The Three Queens. There’s an interesting legend/account of their deeds. Local heroes.

Blackbeard’s lookout tower. I suppose that this is not as impressive as it once was, now, with a swimming pool in front and hotel accommodations surrounding it. No lack of vertigo here, as I climbed up the center wrought iron stairwell inside. I’m not a fan of heights and shaky staircases.

Anne Bonney, Pirate. Of all the pirate statues here, this one had the most character. Also, supposedly she was Irish. Upon reflection, I really should have cropped this picture or maybe took a less accidentally suggestive picture.

After our lunch, we went for a little walk around and about. In one of the public parks, there were roosters and hens roaming about. Here’s a rather lucky snapshot (on my part) of one native.

That’s it for now. Next post, St. Kitts-Nevis and Barbados.

marshmallows!

Intro

It has been some time since my last post- I was out shopping this weekend and I came across a mixer on sale at the Williams-Sonoma store. Well, as it was 33% off an already discounted price, I decided to buy it. A few people have been pressuring me to get a mixer, under the assumption that I would make more treats. Ha, we’ll see!

I already had a promise made with a friend that if I ever bought a mixer, the first recipe I would make (and share!) would be marshmallows. Hence, here we are.

The recipe I used is based upon Alton Brown’s recipe from Good Eats. I used a little bit more water and more vanilla. Here’s a link if you’re interested in the original recipe.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-marshmallows-recipe/index.html

Marshmallows

Ingredients

3 packages unflavored gelatin

3/4 cups water

1/2 cup water

1 cup light corn syrup

1 1/2 cups sugar (1 lb.)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Other

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Nonstick spray

Pour the gelatin into the mixing bowl, and then pour the 3/4 cups of water into the bowl. Swirl the water around a little if necessary, to ensure that there aren’t any dry spots in the gelatin.

In a saucepan, pour the remaining half cup of water, corn syrup, sugar, and salt. Heat the mix covered for a few minutes until it starts to simmer, then remove the lid. Affix a candy thermometer and allow the syrup to come to a boil.

It is worth nothing, here, that the temperature will eventually rise quickly to 212F as the water begins to boil. Then, it will taper off as the water is expelled from the syrup. Thus- don’t be alarmed if the temperature rises quickly- you have a few minutes before it starts to ascend past the boiling point.

While the syrup is heading toward a boil, grease a pan with nonstick spray and powdered sugar.

Once the syrup has reached soft-ball stage (240F, around 6 minutes), remove the saucepan from the heat. Immediately turn on the mixer on its lowest setting, and carefully pour in the syrup.

Bring the mixer up to its highest mixing speed, and immediately pour in the vanilla. Leave the mixer on for about 14 minutes. During this time the mixture will begin to whip up and become fluffy.

Here’s another thing to note. Bring the mixture up to speed as fast as you can. This is to avoid the whisk holding the marshmallow, as opposed to the marshmallow being whipped by the whisk. Expect lots of steam to be expelled, too, as the gelatin is incorporated into the syrup.

After a few minutes, you can observe that the mixture will lighten, take on air, and puff up. Also- expect your mixer to be working very hard during this process. The table where the mixer was standing shook continuously during this ordeal.

After the mixture has fluffed up, pour it out into your pan. Immediately spread it evenly in the pan as briskly as you can, as it will become very sticky.

Allow the new marshmallow to set for at least 4 hours.

Conclusion

At this time, I did four batches and I am still waiting for everything to set. I dusted the tops with powdered sugar and covered them with foil. I will follow up later once I have eaten them. I mean- once I have shared them with friends.

archives: kohlrabi greens (june 2008)

Intro

When I buy kohlrabi, I used to feel like I was giving up on part of my purchase, as I had never tried to do anything with the leaves and would just throw them away.

Well, looking closely at the leaves, they look pretty tough and the stems are quite firm as well. Digging around on the web, I did find instances of other people cooking them and a few claims that they were delicious. I decided to give them a shot, by sautéing them.

Well, what’s the worst that could happen?

Recipe

Kohlrabi Green Sauté

1/3 lb of kohlrabi greens

2+ tsp of garlic, as desired

1+ tbsp of olive oil, as desired

Salt
Pepper

Prep the kohlrabi greens by removing the lower leafless portions of the stems. You may also cut a thin V into the leaves if you wish and remove the upper portion of the stems. Cut roughly into 1½ inch squares or strips.

Heat a frypan or sauté pan to medium-high heat. Once the pan has reached a relatively hot temperature, where a few droplets of water may sizzle a little when placed into a pan, pour in the olive oil and the garlic.

Yes, I used pre-diced garlic. Fresh is always better, though.

Saute the garlic just to the point where it is about to brown at the corners, and place the kohlrabi greens in.

Fold the greens over itself, lifting the bottom wilted leaves over the top of the uncooked leaves. Repeat until the leaves have diminished in size and become a bit limp.

Note that at this stage, there is still about half cooked and half uncooked. Keep folding!

We are just about there! A significant amount of moisture will have cooked out and the apparent volume will be reduced.

Season the greens with salt and pepper, to taste, and immediately plate.

Finished!

Conclusion

Well, ultimately, I think this is not for everyone. The cooked stems were a bit bitter, and the leaves were a little bit flavorless. I think it might be better to make a soup out of the greens instead, perhaps as a substitute for Kale. The leaves were also a bit rubbery after being subjected to moderately high heat. Slow and steady is probably the way to go. Oh well. :)

archives: clafoutis (june 2008)

Ok so this is from about a year ago- I made some mistakes with this recipe but it came out ok. If I make this again, I'll repost with fixes and with final presentation.

Clafoutis

1 Pound of Fruit (Cherries)

1/2 Cup Sugar + 1 tbsp Sugar (Reserve)

1 tsp Cornstarch

1/3 Cup Flour

1 Cup Milk

4 Large Eggs

1 tsp Salt

1/4 Cup Butter + Butter to coat baking pans

1 tsp Vanilla

1 tsp Almond Extract

Makes enough to fit into 2x 9” Cake Pans

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Wash the cherries or prep the fruit, and set aside. If you are using Cherries, remove the stems, but you don’t have to remove the pits. Traditionally, the pits stay in the cherries for this recipe.

To start, butter the pans, and melt a 1/4 Cup Butter over low heat.

Don’t forget to butter the sides of the pans!

Note: Low heat! This means your saucepan should not be so hot that you can’t touch the bottom.

Prep the dry ingredients, sifting together the flour, cornstarch, and salt. Set aside.

In the main bowl, beat the eggs until they are foamy.

Next, add the sugar, then whisk or stir until mostly dissolved. A few sugar crystals floating around is ok.

Once the sugar has been well incorporated into the eggs, add the milk, vanilla, and almond extract to the eggs.

Toss the cherries with the 1 tbsp of sugar that was set aside (Note: I forgot this part!). Divide the cherries between the two pans.

Add the dry mix into the wet mix, whisk together until incorporated, and then pour over each pan of cherries.

Bake at 350 for about 30-35 minutes, or until the clafoutis is very puffy and browned, and has started to climb up the sides of the pan. Don’t open the oven door while it is baking, or it will collapse prematurely and the texture will be bad.

Serve warm. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the top if you’d like.

Serves 16 people one tiny slice each, 8 people a large slice each, or … you get the idea. :)

macaroons revisited

:) looks like everything imported from blogger just fine! Only the food posts and gaming posts are here. Everything else is at http://evilwombat.posterous.com/ . Keeping up two alter egos is a lot of work!

chocolate brownies

Awww yeah. This recipe has truly served me well. If I may say, it makes a very dense and chewy brownie.

I overhear a lot of people talking about cake brownies. Why would you want to mess around? After practicing this recipe a few times I am quite convinced that cake brownies are not the way to go. Note that this recipe doesn't use any leavening of any sort. Just stir until your arm is sore and you're good to go.

chocolate brownies

ganache
8oz Chocolate
1 Cup of butter (2 sticks)

wet ingredients
5 eggs
2 1/2 cups of brown sugar
1 tbsp of vanilla

dry ingredients
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Start by mixing your dry ingredients together in one bowl.

In another bowl mix your wet ingredients together. Mix well and make sure there are no lumps.

Now, to make the ganache. Is this really a ganache? I don't know. I suppose it is really cream and chocolate.

Melt your chocolate and butter together. Use a double boiler, or a sauce pan at very very low heat.

Right as the butter has become liquid, is when I like to add the chocolate.

Add the chocolate.

Stir carefully, and keep an eye on the ganache to ensure it doesn't burn.

Remove it from the heat once it has completely melted together. You should be able to touch the bottom of the pan with the flat of your palm if the heat is just low enough. If it is too hot to touch or to do this, set the mixture aside to cool for a while.

Once cool enough (if necessary), pour it into the wet mixture.

Stir it together.

Add the dry mixture.

Stir well, until there are no more dry spots.

In a parchment lined or well buttered 9"x13" pan, pour the brownie batter.

It will be really thick, so you may want to use something to spread it about so that you get all the corners.

Place it into the oven and bake for about 30-40 minutes. Usually this takes about 35 minutes for me. You may use the typical toothpick test in the center to test for doneness.

Unfortunately I don't have any further action shots, as this batch was earmarked for overnight delivery to a friend. Maybe another day I will fill in a final picture.

Anyways, make sure you cut the brownies after they have cooled to room temperature. If you cut them any earlier, you'll find it tough to cut because it will stick to your knife blade and make a messy cut. If you are going to cart your brownies around, I like to wrap mine in plastic wrap. Brownies tend to bruise each other if you cut them and carry them around in contact w/each other.

strawberry & rhubarb pie

I'll be the first to admit; I was never a big fan of rhubarb growing up. To the unfortunate credit of anyone who has ever served me rhubarb; you all have it wrong!

Ok so that is a little bit mean spirited, but rhubarb is no joke. I tried making this pie at the advice of a coworker who insisted, "best pie ever!!". After pacing up and down the grocery aisle, sigh, it was still quite early in the season to be looking for peaches and plums. Strawberries were just in season, and there were those stalks of rhubarb looking lonely in the baskets in the produce aisle.

Alright... I guess we'll see how this turns out; I said to myself. The grocery clerk attempted to ring it up as celery. Oops. The bagger corrected him and I groaned inwardly. I hope this turns out alright.

strawberry rhubarb pie, filling

3 cups of rhubarb
4 cups of strawberries

1 lemon

1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 cup of instant tapioca powder

1 whole pie crust (double the previous recipe so that you can have a top and bottom).

Wash your berries and rhubarb, and prepare to cut up your rhubarb.

Note that you do not want any leaves remaining on your rhubarb. If there are any little bits, cut them off.

Take your rhubarb and cut them roughly into 1/2 inch chunks. If they're extra wide you may wish to halve them lengthwise.

Set the rhubarb aside, and now to prep the strawberries.

I removed the leaves by twisting them off, and then cut off the tops. Then I cut the strawberries into about half inch chunks, and some into quarter inch chunks.

I set the strawberries aside in a separate bowl.

Take your lemon and zest it into the rhubarb. I have two lemons here because I'm making two pies.

For some reason, I get a kick out of denuded lemons. I'm weird like that.

Measure out your sugar, and pour it into your rhubarb and lemon zest mixture.

Squeeze the lemon juice out of the lemon (or lemons), and mix it up!

Measure out the tapioca powder.

I'd never seen tapioca powder or instant tapioca before; so I was curious about the texture... was this really going to be ok?

Almost time to fill the pies. Note again, each pie crust recipe only makes one layer. You need two portions to make a pie, four to make two pies.

Pour the tapioca into the rhubarb mixture and stir well.

Mix the rhubarb into the strawberry mixture. Be gentle with the strawberries.

Fill your pie shells. It's ok to leave it heaping a little bit in the center.

Seal your pies well (lesson learned, here) and make some incisions so that steam may escape.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then, rotate your pies around, and bake at 350 for another 25-30 minutes.

All done!

---

I tried these pies... and they were simply amazing. Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that these are the best pies ever.

pie dough

All pies start with pie dough, so let's make some basic pie dough so we can go on and make pies.

sweet pie dough

1 1/4 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of chilled or frozen butter (1 stick)

2-4 tablespoons of ice water

Combine the flour, sugar, salt together in a bowl. Sift them together, if you like. if not, then make sure you mix really well.

Cut the butter up into 1/3 inch chunks if it is in stick form and drop them into the flour.

From here, you'll want to use a pastry cutter or a really sturdy fork (yes, really!) and cut the butter into the flour.

This looks like it won't do anything, but the goal is to get little pea sized chunks of butter with a lot of finer chunks of butter coated in flour.

Once you have cut the butter into the flour and can't really cut the butter into smaller chunks, you'll want to start forming the dough. I like to squeeze it through my fingers.

Once the dough starts to form a little, add ice water a little bit at a time. Depending on how humid it is or how dry your flour and butter are, you may not need much water. You just want to add enough to make the dough come together.

Here is 1 tablespoon.

Work the dough a little bit in between each bit of water.

After another tablespoon and a half, the dough has started to just barely come together.

From here you may keep squeezing it about in the bowl, or transfer it to a lightly floured work surface.

Work it just a little so that it mostly stays together, and then ball it up and flatten it into a disc about 3/4ths of an inch in height.

Wrap the disc with some plastic wrap, and place it in the fridge for at least 45 minutes, or freeze for later.

Now wasn't that easy? Make sure you work briskly through this process. The colder the butter and dough stays, the more flaky and crisp your dough will be. Try to work it just the slightest amount possible and add only enough water to make it form. These things go a long way towards making an awesome crust.

snickerdoodles!

These are some of my favorite cookies. Granted, most cookies are among my favorite things to eat, but these are especially good just a short while after being baked, and they really make a house smell awesome.

snickerdoodles

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

dry ingredients

2 & 3/4 Cups Flour
1 Tsp Baking Soda
2 Tsp Cream of Tartar
1/2 Tsp Salt

wet ingredients

1 Cup Shortening
1 & 1/2 Cups of Brown Sugar
2 Large Eggs
2 Tsp Vanilla

coating

1/4 Cup Sugar
3 Tsp Cinnamon Powder

Before we begin, I'd like to point out that before I started making these, I had long been wary of Crisco. When I checked to see what brand of Shortening I should buy at the supermarket, I was surprised to find out that Crisco was 100% vegetable based shortening. Needless to say, it still looks a bit strange, a very pure and transcendent white. However, it makes a very soft cookie, in spite of the relatively high ratio of flour to fat in this ratio.

Sift or thoroughly mix your dry ingredients in a bowl, and set aside.

Combine the sugar and shortening in another bowl, and cream until thoroughly mixed. Add the two eggs and continue mixing. You'll find that at this stage, the wet ingredients start to take on a thin batter-like consistency. Add the vanilla and keep mixing until incorporated.

Although this cookie is very soft once baked, the cookie dough is relatively dry. It helps to add the dry mixture in halves to the wet mixture.

After the dry mixture has been added, the dough will appear to be slightly crumbly. Don't overwork the dough once the dry mix has been incorporated and no dry spots remain.

Mix up the coating in yet another bowl (or reuse the dry mix bowl). Scoop the dough into small balls, and roll them or form them carefully and roll them around in the coating.

Myself, I like to do this 6 at a time for that size of bowl.

Make sure you space the cookie dough at least an inch and a half apart on the sheet.

Bake in the oven for 8 minutes.

When they come out of the oven, they will be very soft. Gently transfer to a wire rack or plate to cool.

This recipe makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies. If you form them into smaller balls you can probably exceed 4 dozen cookies, but you may wish to cut the baking time to 7 minutes.

pecan shortbread

Today we have a shortbread recipe, which has served me well over the past few months. For this version, we'll be adding pecans.

pecan shortbread

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees, with the rack set in the center of the oven.

dry ingredients
2 Cups Flour
1/4 Tsp Baking Powder
1/4 Salt

wet ingredients
1 Cup of Butter (2 sticks), Cold
1/2 Cup of Powdered Sugar
1 Tsp of Vanilla

other ingredients
8oz of Pecans (about 1.5 cups)

First, take the dry ingredients and either sift or mix them together. If you don't sift, make sure you really mix them together and take a few extra minutes and be thorough about it. Set the dry mix aside.

Second, in a separate bowl, take the butter and the sugar and cream them together. If you are new to making shortbread, you may notice that there isn't nearly as much sugar as in most other cookie recipes. Hence you will see that there are some lumps in your butter mix.

This is normal. Keep creaming through until no streaks of butter remain. Add the vanilla and keep creaming the butter until thoroughly incorporated. Add your dry mixture.

Mix together, and then get in there with your hands and mash/squeeze through the mixture until it starts to get really creamy. You'll end up with a pale dough and very buttery hands.

At this point, you should let the dough rest a little bit in the fridge. Working the dough with your hands will raise the temperature of the dough, so giving it about 5 minutes of rest will go a long way towards preserving the soft yet crisp texture at the end. You want to try and keep the dough as cool as possible while still being workable.

After the rest, or if you are speedy and going to hand-shape the cookies, mix in the pecans. This is also going to raise the temperature, so work quickly from here. Myself, I divided the dough in half and rolled it out to be cut.

Since you aren't supposed to use sharp objects on a ROUL'PAT or SIL'PAT, I used a flat pastry/vegetable scoop to cut it.

Immediately after I cut the first set, I put it in the oven. I quickly cut out the 2nd half of the dough and stashed it in the fridge. The first batch baked in the oven for about 13 minutes. If you see the edges starting to brown, take them out of the oven! They're done.

Be careful when transferring the cookies to a wire rack or another plate to cool. If you drop them they may shatter. Once they have cooled they will firm up a little bit.

Makes about 32 cookies, if shaped to 1.5 inches square.