Cold-Brewed Coffee

Even though I drink a lot of coffee, I hadn't been aware of the Cold-Brewed dreams come true in store for me until Ellen mentioned it to me. I did a quick search online and realized it is one of the easiest things to do ever. One article explained that the bitter taste in coffee is a result of heating it. That doesn't exist if you don't heat it. So here's what you do to make the most delicious cold coffee ever. It helps to start with good coffee:

-grind some coffee. however much you want to use. i have a tablespoon scoop and i think i used about 8 scoops for 1 mason jar of brew.
-put it in a mason jar. add water to the top.
-leave it out at room temperature for 24 hours.
-if you have a french press this will be so easy. just pour the coffee and water into the press and press it down.
-otherwise you'll have to strain out the grounds. you could use coffee filters or cheese cloth.

That's all. It's SO GOOD! And only takes about 24 hours and 5 seconds.

Beet and Portabella Salad

This could also be called Bloody Salad. It was intense. I don't have any gloves, so after roasting the beets I had to get them in the sink and cut them with plastic grocery bags on my hands. There was red everywhere. But it was totally worth it.

I know beets really gross some people out, but I think that must be an association they have with them or something. Like how I hated Munster Cheeese because as a child I was watching Mr. Rogers while eating it and they showed a baby just after birth. Sorry. Beets are awesome. They go with all sorts of other tasty things too, like mushrooms, shallots, goat cheese, walnuts and balsalmic vinegar! Those are, coincidentally, the ingredients for this amazingly simple recipe. The only semi-difficult thing is roasting the beets.

Here's how:
Pre-heat oven to 400 F. Wash the beets off really well. Mine were literally covered in mud which was cool. Cut the leaves off leaving about two inches of the stem connected to the root. Lay out some tin foil. Put on the beets. Sprinkle olive oil on them. Wrap them up and stick them in the oven for about an hour. Pull them out, let them cool a little bit, and BEWARE. They are extremely messy. You will also need to roast the mushrooms (I used portabella even though I know that it is all the rage to NOT use these anymore. But I love their thickness.) for about 20 minutes at the same temperature so you can add them into the oven after about 40 minutes of beet cooking.

This has also remarkably lasted very well in my refridgerator for a few days now. I made a very simple oil, vinegar, and spicey mustard dressing that I add onto each serving so that the spinach doesn't get all wilty in the refridgerator.

mmm.

Yard Sale

On Saturday I had a yard sale. I made a total of $11 all day, and spent over $20 on ingredients for baked goods at the sale. Classic. It was an exciting day, though. Ellen, Lindsay and LB and I sat on the front porch reading celebrity gossip and catching up on the lives of Brit-Brit and Lil' Lohan. Have you ever seen Britney Spears stoned?? Priceless!

Oh, back to food. Ok. I made three things: Almond Lemon Scones, Blueberry Muffin Tops and Fresh Fruit Pizza. The scones are kind of my staple by now. So easy to make and so delicious. The Fresh Fruit Pizza was also not new. I made it for a BBQ at Lindsay's once, but it was much better then. I tried making it in a pie dish this time which caused the crust to be way too thick and the egg, sugar, butter sauce on top to be way too thick and runny. Not very appealing, although it looked beautiful with the plum around the edge.

The Blueberry Muffin tops were new and, honestly, nothing that exciting either. I ran out of sugar going into this one and had to substitute a mixture of brown and powdered. This never really works but I always make myself believe that it will. They weren't bad by any means, just nothing special. Which is too bad because the blueberries were AMAZINGLY good.


I'll be making the fruit pizza again, as well as the scones. But next time I have blueberries I'm trying something else. So long Muffin Tops!

Summer Roll Success!

After many delays and trips to different stores I was finally able to make the Vietnamese summer rolls. Ohhhhhh boy. I think I outdid the restaurant ones. These even had mangos in them! And shitakes marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and pepper! I think I might have it down to an art now. The only thing I am worried about is how they will stay in the refridgerator. There were many many summer rolls left over. Maybe I'll pass them out at my garage sale on Saturday. Buy an old textbook or t-shirt, get an awesome summer roll. Ok enough. Here is a picture of the finished product:





Now onto the making of. First of all, this took like, at least 4 hours to make. So I wouldn't try and make these unless you seriously like to julienne things and marinade crap. Also, by the time I got to actually rolling them, I got the same feeling I tend to get when I make really awesome pancakes. Once it comes down to actually frying them, I'm kinda over it. I should have called in my assistant.

I was skeptical about the mango, I have to say. But when I tasted it I have no idea why. There are lots of different distinct tastes in this: sweet, spicey, salty, and a little sour because of the lime in the dipping sauce.

Anyways, here is my adapted recipe:

Summer Rolls with Dipping Sauce to Impress
MUSHROOM MARINADE
1 T olive oil
4 oz shitake mushroom caps, cut into 1 inch squares 1/4 cup rice vinegar (or balsalmic, if it's all you've got)
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
salt & pepper

12 Shrimp, all prepared and de-pooped
3 oz vermicelli (1 log, if you bought a pack of 6)
1 T peanut sauce of some sort
rice paper sheets
2 carrots, julienned
1/2 cucumber, peeled, de-seeded, julienned
fresh mint leaves
fresh basil leaves
fresh cilantro leaves
1 mango, julienned

DIPPING SAUCE
1 clove garlic
salt
2 T sugar
1/4 cup hot water
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 T fish sauce
1/2 tea spoon red chili sauce
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 lime, all its juice

1. Cook the shrimp for about 2 minutes and slice them. Set them aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cover rice vermicelli with hot shrimp water; let soak for 10 minutes. Drain, and rinse under cold water. Mix the peanut sauce into the noodles. Set aside.
3. Heat canola oil in a large skillet set over high heat. Add mushrooms, and sauté until tender and mushrooms have released most of their liquid. Add vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil; cook about 1 minute more. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a small bowl, and let cool to room temperature.
4. Fill a wide dish with warm water (can reuse the vermicelli/shrimp water as it should still be hot). Working with 1-2 rice-paper wrapper at a time, soak in water for 30 seconds; immediately lay flat on a work surface. Place 3 reserved shrimp halves, cut sides up, on bottom third, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Place 2 to 3 reserved mushrooms over shrimp. Top with assortment of vermicelli, carrots, mint, basil, cilantro, cucumber, and mango. Fold bottom of wrapper over fillings; roll over once, tuck in sides, and finish rolling. You can try only using one rice paper but i usually had to overlap two.
   
5. Place finished roll on a plate; cover with a damp towel. Repeat process with remaining ingredients. Serve with dipping sauce (#6-7).
6. Crush garlic clove in a press and transfer to a small bowl.
7. Stir sugar in hot water until dissolved, and add to bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill in refrigerator until ready to use. Store sauce in a refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Vague Recipe for EKT

In Oakland we ate at Le Cheval, a Vietnamese restaurant. Frank's uncle recommended it which gave it lots of street cred. Trust me. It was the 4th of July at around 8:30pm and there were actually a fair amount of people inside.

Frank and I both ordered Bahn Hoi. The server came up to our table and looked at Frank, asking if he knew what to do with the plate in front of him (rice papers, beef, steamed vermicelli, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, and mint leaves). He totally didn't. So she cut them up for him in a very motherly way. Slowly, delicately, with a little added sass. Then she dipped the rice paper in a bowl of hot water, placed it on his plate and told him to ROLL.

So the recipe is as follows. Keep in mind there was an amazing sauce/spicey creation on top of the vermicelli that included but was definitely not limited to cilantro:

-a meat (shrimp, chicken, beef, etc)
-vermicelli (steamed)
-small diced or cut vegetables such as carrots
-cucumbers
-mint leaves
-lettuce leaves
-dipping sauce

Dip the rice paper in hot water (you may need two sheets depending on how big they are). Add what you think can fit into the rice paper. Roll. Eat. SO GOOD!

Summer Experiments: A Whirlwind Tour

SWEET POTATO PIE:
What else to make on a hot summer day? I love sweet potatoes so figured it most appropriate if I make sweet potato pie with whatever I have available in the kitchen. Oddly enough, I had just about all of the ingredients.


ALMOST PRIMARY COLOR PANCAKES:
I usually add lots of fruit to pancakes so that they don't taste like the breakfast equivalent of white bread. Since I was in Texas with my brother, and not in my own kitchen full of fruit, we decided to make them more awesome with food coloring. So that they weren't too plain, I also added a lot of sesame seeds. MMM.

PICNIC:
Featured here are the fruit of my Saturday night labor: curried potato salad with green beans, spiced nuts, and homemade butter (I went crazy) with dill and lemon.

BBQ PINEAPPLE+BANANA FLOWER SUMMER DRINK:
This little number was created very late into the night of a BBQ that was eventually stopped by Lindsay's landlord (human pyramids in the backyard aren't as quiet as you might think). If memory serves me, it includes vodka, juice, bbq'd pineapple, strawberries, bananas crushed into flower shapes, and a certain amount of bravery.


Since I don't want to live too far in the past, I felt I needed to add these little summer treats into one scrunched entry so that I could get them out of my system and move on. Not pictures are lots and lots of BBQ creations. This summer is the summer of BBQ'd potato packets: Add potatoes (all kinds), dill, garlic, oil, fennel, onion, and anything else you want (spices? yes.). Wrap them up in tin foil and wait wait wait while they cook slowly on the BBQ. You will never be disappointed.

What to do with a lot of jitneys in your pocket...

I think it is very appropriate that my first blog entry, for this blog that aims at saving pennies and being thrifty, be about my recent trip to Chez Panisse - one of the top restaurants in the world. Ah yes, you know...the usual. I think it is not that cool that the pictures kind of suck, but I was much more interested in the eating and the chatting that were about to ensue than the picture taking. In fact, this isn't even what I ordered (wild salmon with beans, beats, and other tasty treats). This was the morel ravioli with parsley sauce.

The meal started off with with the carbonated tap water that has become the restaurant's answer to (unsustainable and kind of stupid) bottled water. They also provide a little bowl of mixed olives which was very exciting for me. Pretty awesome.

My friend Asi works there (thus our ability to get reservations) and was able to secure two bottles of wine ahead of time. She helps write the wine list so they worked perfectly with the meal. The kitchen sent us up a plate of octopus which is something I may never be able to say ever again in my life. They also sent us up two desserts (boms) as the pastry chefs are also friends with Asi. Thanks, Asi.

There isn't too much that I want to say about the food other than it is so delicious and fresh. There aren't many added sauces. It seems as though they let the ingredients flavor each other in plates that you absolutely have to scrap clean (which is easily done with the delicious bread).

After the meal (and before the dessert wine), the server brought us this glass teapot full of lemon verbena with mint leaves. Me and Asi totally chugged it! So great and fresh. A friend of mine who had recently been to Morocco said it was also very Moroccan, so cheers to that!

It is easy to understand why this place is rated so highly on their food alone. I mean, Tom Waits eats there! And Bill Clinton ate there! But the restaurant, and its founder, Alice Walker, were very huge players in the organic movement and the slow food movement and basically every other sustainable living food related movement that is spreading fairly widely right now. Read more about it here.

Here's my introduction.

I'm Sarah. More than anyone else that i know, i love to bake/cook. One of my favorite activities is to stroll the aisles of the grocery store & ask myself, "What could I use turnips for?" or "what would be a delicious cinnamon substitute in sweet potato pie?" I recently concocted a candy that involved boiling two different types of sugar separately and I have great success with scones. I only eat bagels for breakfast.

With this blog, I hope to let you in on what I eat and what I cook. I rarely go out to eat, except on vacation, so it's mainly going to be lots of cheap experiments. I was vegetarian for about 12 years but have slowly been adding meats into the routine. Today, for example, I bought some sliced turkey for the first time ever. That's because the last time I ate turkey I was probably about 12 and lived with my mom and dad.

Enjoy!