Bread Salad (Panzanella)

Don’t forget to enter my OXO Salad Dressing Shaker Giveaway HERE. It’s my new favorite kitchen toy.

I first heard about this kind of salad several years ago. I was intrigued by the idea but food blogs were still mostly non-existent and I didn’t have a recipe. I decided to just try to make a bread salad.

Well, I didn’t know what the helk I was doing. I ended up with a good flavored mushy salad.

Yesterday Jake said, “Remember when you didn’t know how to cook?”

What? I thought I could always cook!

Ok, so I made a mushy salad, a LONG time ago. It’s great what years of practice and lots of food blog reading can do for a person.

This is barely a recipe. I did not measure, and I don’t think you should either. Taste, taste, taste!

Bread Salad (Panzanella)

• Cut 5 or 6 Cups of hearty, rustic bread into 1” pieces. I cubed, but you can tear.
• olive oil
• salt
• 6 smallish, locally grown tomatoes (Roma sized) that have NEVER been in the fridge and are ripe
• 1 Japanese cucumber (less seeds/water, but you can use whatever) peeled and cut into half moon chunks
• Sherry vinegar (balsamic would be acceptable)
• fresh Mozzarella cheese, cubed (more than a cup)
• 3 large handfuls of Arugula
• Sunflower Sprouts
• Thinly sliced red onion
• More olive oil
• Minced garlic (if you can handle it raw)
• sugar
• pepper and salt to taste
• A few Tablespoons of thinly sliced basil

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees and lay the bread cubes onto a baking sheet. Pour olive oil (lots, like half a cup) over the bread and toss, rubbing it with your fingers. Sprinkle salt over the top. Toast the bread in the oven for several minutes, tossing the bread once during cooking to toast both sides. Remove when they are crouton like and golden. Let cool on the sheet. They should seem too dry. They’ll soak up liquid and soften later.
2. While the bread is toasting, cut up the tomatoes and reserve the juices as much as possible. Put the tomatoes in a metal strainer/colander over a bowl. Toss the tomatoes with salt and let the juice seep into the bottom bowl for about 15 minutes. Put the onion in the tomato juice bowl.
3. Put the cooled bread pieces, strained tomatoes, cucumber, arugula, sprouts, and cheese into a large bowl. Whisk a couple of glugs of olive oil, garlic, and a few Tablespoons of sherry vinegar into the bowl of tomato juices. You may want to add a little teensy bit of sugar here. Your call.
4. Pour the dressing over the whole salad, add some salt and pepper, throw in the basil, and toss the salad lots of times. The bread should start taking up some of the liquid and softening. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Serve immediately.

Passion Fruit Dressing and an OXO Giveaway!

I only like salad if I have some real ingredients to put in, like roasted tomatoes, hearts of palm, steak strips, or Pammy’s Dressing.

My friend Pam has a salad on her table every night, and more often than not it’s dressed with her special homemade sauce. I’d drink the stuff if no one was looking.

I really dislike store bought dressing. I keep one bottle in my fridge for emergencies, but generally I’d prefer to pour it down the sink than in my salad bowl. I try to pilfer Pam’s dressing when I can but now I finally can make a bottle of my own. The last time I made it I didn’t have orange juice concentrate, so I improvised with some Lilikoi. I went to salad dressing heaven.

Thanks to OXO, I now have a salad dressing shaker in the fridge at all times.

My favorite, truly functional features:

1) Flip top lid, no drips with a tight seal. Plus a spout that ensures you don’t have salad dressing dripping over the side.

2) Liquid measurement tick marks

3) Screw top, so you can clean it easily.

I love it. And now you can have one too.

OXO sent me an extra salad dressing shaker so I can pass it on to you.

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me about your favorite salad or dressing ingredient(s). If you have a link to a recipe, I’m always looking for inspiration!

You can get up to two extra entries for tweeting and/or following this blog.

Passionfruit Dressing (Lilikoi Dressing) (slightly adapted from Pammy’s recipe)

• 2/3 Cup olive oil
• scant 1/4 Cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp no salt seasoning
• salt to taste
• 3 Tbsp lilikoi puree
• 1/2 tsp honey or more to taste (I like mine sweeter)
• 1 Tbsp water
• pinch of dried parsley
• 2 Tbsp dijon mustard (not Grey Poupon)
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1. Whisk or shake all ingredients together until uniform. You may need to shake again before serving.
2. Tip: If your dressing gets very cold, it may separate or be difficult to pour. Wait until it warms to room temperature again, or put it in the microwave for a few seconds and shake.

OXO sent me this product for free. All opinions are my own.

Chobani Greek Yogurt and Granola Popsicles

I have a confession to make.

I eat breakfast in the car.

Sometimes I drink a smoothie, but often enough I’m holding a bowl of something and trying to drive at the same time.

This is all while I’m racing to get Amaya to school on time (we’re on time at least twice a week) because getting ready in the morning is like the movie Groundhog Day. We start the same way every day and I can’t figure out how to do it right.

Now, if I have to eat breakfast in the car, wouldn’t it be nice to have something that didn’t require two hands? And included all my favorite breakfast foods?

Granola, yogurt, honey.

Now we’re talking.

I really only love plain yogurt, and I love Greek yogurt, except for that yoplait one because that stuff is made thick with GELATIN instead. What’s up with that?

Chobani has tons of protein and active cultures. The plain yogurt has a tartness that I can’t deny and when I taste flavored yogurts I find myself wondering if it’s really yogurt. I like it when I open up a package of Greek yogurt and I can see that thick cream. Yum.

I’d love to eat this in the car on the way to work. Popsicles for breakfast are awesome.

Chobani Greek Yogurt and Granola Popsicles (makes 3 Zoku popsicles)

• 1/3 Cup Chobani plain Greek yogurt
• 2/3 Cup milk
• 1/2 Cup granola
• 2 tsp honey or to taste
• extra honey for drizzling—optional

1. Stir together the yogurt, milk and honey. Pour a teaspoon of granola into the bottom of each popsicle mold. Place the popsicle stick in the mold.
2. Pour some of the liquid over the granola and when it reaches half way up the mold, add more granola (1-2 Tbsp per mold) and then fill it up with the liquid. Sprinkle the rest of the granola on top.
3. Freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. Remove and drizzle with honey if desired. Serve.

For fun I also tried some non-Zoku ones, and the granola of course got soggy, but it was nice, like oatmeal. (I know, you’re thinking, Frozen Oatmeal? but it was chewy and good. I like the berries as well. This one was a better serving size for breakfast.

Let’s face it, I eat a big breakfast.

Chobani Greek Yogurt and Granola Popsicles, Non-Zoku version (serves one)

• 1/4 cup Chobani plain Greek yogurt
• 5 Tablespoons milk
• 1-2 tsp honey
• 1/4 Cup granola
• 2 Tbsp mixed berries (can be frozen)

1. Combine the yogurt, milk and honey in a small bowl. In a pint glass jar, layer the granola, liquid and berries. Place the popsicle stick and freeze for a few hours until firm.
2. To serve, run the outside of the jar under warm water for 10 seconds. Pull out the popsicle and eat.

 

Chobani yogurt is perfect for cooking and baking and freezing. I like greek yogurt much better than sour cream, even! I looked over the recipes for Chobani kitchen and found a Thai curry I want to try (which would be a REALLY great way to save some fat on coconut curry). You should check it out.

Do you use yogurt in your cooking? How?

This post is sponsored by Chobani. All opinions and content (except links) are my own.

Red Curry Noodles

This recipe is crazy easy and delicious.

Just make sure you make enough, or your munchkin will finish it off for you.

Even if she just lost a tooth.

(in fact, this recipe is probably good for people with a loose tooth.)

Sometimes I do long for an evening with the rain hitting softly against the closed windows, and a sweater. We don’t get those in Hawaii too often (rainy evenings I mean. I suppose there are sweaters for rooms with too-much air conditioning.). I can’t remember the last time I was inside my house with the windows closed.

This bowl reminds me of the comfort in a warm dinner.

Make it your dinner. Adjust the flavors. Don’t be afraid of tasting and testing. I had to try a couple of times to get it right, but I think I’ve hit the right combination of ingredients that will make this a success at your house. The first time I made it I used yellow curry paste, but I think the red is better.

Use whatever vegetables you have. This could be great with snow peas, carrots, mung bean sprouts… Add some cilantro if you are so inclined. Chicken if you’d like an omnivore option.

Try some different types of noodles. I know this would be delicious with rice noodles. I think thicker is better.The first time I made it I used regular ramen noodles, but they just were too soggy. Chinese noodles with egg as an ingredient just stood up better to the curry, and were a little thicker. The noodles clung to the sauce so well. I love that velvety soup. I could drink it.

I did.

Here’s my fake instagram picture. ‘Cause I’m jealous of those ihappy people.

Red Curry Noodles (serves 2-4) print this recipe!

I used a fairly mild red curry paste. I used more than 2Tbsp of the paste and just had a hint of spice. I’ve had very spicy pastes as well. If you don’t know the strength of your curry, start with less than 1 Tbsp and work your way up. Or make your own. Then you’ll know how spicy it will be.

• 1/3 Cup coconut cream (can be scraped from the top of an unshaken can of coconut milk)
• About 2 T Red Curry Paste (I used Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste)
• 1/2 onion, halved and sliced
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1 1/2 Cups broccoli, cut into pieces
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 Tbsp, or more, fish sauce (if you don’t like the taste of fish sauce, use less. I like that little bit of funk, myself)
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 Cup water
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• salt to taste
• 1/2 Cup tofu, cubed (optional)
• Sriracha sauce, optional
• 2 packages dried Chinese noodles (16 oz each package) or other kind of noodle

1. Heat up 2-3 quarts of water in a large saucepan for the noodles.

2. Heat 1/3 Cup coconut cream in a fry pan over medium heat. When the cream starts bubbling and glistening, add the curry paste. Stir it with a wooden spoon until mixed well.

3. Toss in onion, bell pepper and sauté until softened and just slightly browned, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, fish sauce, coconut milk and water. Stir. Add brown sugar and broccoli and bring up to a simmer. Cover but stir occasionally as it cooks.

4. While the curry cooks, cook noodles in boiling water until al-dente and drain. Run cold water over them.

5. Add water to make it the right consistency (should be more like soup) and adjust the seasonings, adding more salt or fish sauce or brown sugar if needed. Add the tofu, if using, in the last couple minutes of cooking. Stir it in gently. If you want it to be spicier, add sriracha sauce to taste and stir.

6. As soon as the broccoli is cooked through, take it off the stove. Serve the noodles in a bowl and ladle the curry over the top of the noodles. Serve immediately.

The Dawn of a New Era

Apparently, when someone gets old enough to be in Kindergarten, they suddenly know how to model.

I swear I didn’t ask her to pose at all.

She started school this week, and time feels like I’m trying to pick out the scenery when I’m sitting in a convertible with the top down at 80 mph.

Oh well, I guess I can enjoy the wind in my hair.

Amaya asked me to make her pancakes, after I was on that wretched diet.

I dropped in some freeze dried strawberry pieces (especially the little powdery pieces at the bottom of the bag that aren’t good for snacking) and chocolate chips.

She said, “Oh! It’s like we can have a real breakfast again! We haven’t had a real breakfast in a LOoooooooNG time!”

Three weeks is eternity to a 5 year old. 5 years is a blink of the eye to a 30 year old. Now that is a cosmic joke.

A Meaningful Summer

I truthfully can’t remember much about summer as a kid.

I remember a few awkward day camps. I’m not a sociable person in large groups. I’d spend most of the day pretending that I was cool hanging out, by myself, and trying not to just pounce with eagerness on the poor soul who tried to talk to me.

In particular I remember a bus ride home from a water center (with a wave pool and a couple of slides) and keeping my bladder from bursting. It was difficult to walk from the bus to the bathroom. Without peeing. Just the movement threatened to sink my reputation as the girl who hung out alone. Soon I would be “the girl who hung out alone and peed while walking”.

But other than that, summer has had few associations with me.

Since I’ve had kids that has changed.

Now summer is this:

I could hold summer with my bare hands, chew noisily, and let its juice slide down my chin.

I could run through summer and get its mud all over my nice clothes.

 

I could bathe in summer until my toe skin gets wrinkly like dried apricots.

 

I could read every last word of summer, staying up late with a flashlight under the covers.

I love summer.

Mango Ice Cubes

• 1 to 50 mangos that are about to go rotten from the tree, because you can’t eat enough.

1. Hold the mango upright on the cutting board, pointing down, vertically. Keep the long side of the oval (from the top view) to the sides, not facing you. Cut down with a very sharp knife (I recommend an 8” chef’s knife, Victorinox brand is the sharpest, best priced one, ever) about 1/2” to 3/4” from the center. You’ll think that you’d be hitting the pit, but it’s surprisingly deep and skinny, for such a long pit. Turn the mango 180 degrees and repeat. Slice a long, shallow piece from the two remaining sides (the pit sticks out here). Suck the seed’s remaining flesh because if you’re wasting good mango fruit you don’t deserve it. You will get it all over your chin, hands, and the table if you’re doing this right.
2. Holding each sliced half in your hand, slice a 3x3 cross section just to the skin, but not through it. Pop the pieces out by inverting the skin, like you’re turning the curve inside out.
3. Remove each perfect piece with careful hands, or especially sticky parts with some careful knife work. I prefer the middle piece to go in my mouth before it makes it any further, like, say, in a bowl.
4. Lay a sheet of wax paper on a cookie sheet. Put the pieces of mango on the cookie sheet, very close but not touching other pieces. Put the whole cookie sheet in the freezer.
5. When the mango is frozen, remove from the freezer and eat, or store them in a ziploc in the freezer for later. These make great smoothie additions all winter long and are really yummy for a quick, cold snack during the summer.

Maybe even better than a great popsicle.

A salad you’d invite to dinner.

I’ve been writing for the Star Advertiser, Hawaii’s newspaper. I have a column once a month in the Wednesday food section.
You can read about and get the recipe for my kale salad in the on-line version here.
I was happy the way the column and the picture turned out and more importantly, I loved the recipe. I was really excited about this salad and I ate it for days. And then made it again. I kind of hate making salads, usually. I love when someone else makes me a salad. I love to eat it. But I really feel like I’m wasting my time when I make one myself.
Like, shouldn’t I be cooking or something? I just chop all the vegetables and then throw them in the bowl? It’s extremely anticlimactic for me. Assembly is so not the same to me as cooking. I feel like I should be sautéing the lettuce or something.
This salad, I think, could make some reappearances. We could even be life-long friends. I’d definitely invite this salad to dinner.
Writing for the newspaper has been a challenging genre change for me. I’m learning—slowly. I wonder if you guys have any suggestions for columns you’d like to see.
Pretty Please?

No one ever says, “It’s easy as biscuits.”

Next week will be the last week we cook in the kitchen for culinary class.

Next week will be the last week I have to haul my Kitchen Aid, 4 bags of groceries, a 50lb bag of flour, and my regular humongous bag of work to school, then the perishables up three flights of stairs to the fridge, and then everything back down and over to the kitchen.

Next week will be the last week that I’ll be yelling to kids to turn off their burners when no pots are even on the stove top or to hold knives down when they walk around. After that I won’t have to remind students to look at the recipe instead of just randomly assigning measurements or mixing steps. I won’t have to demonstrate cooking techniques and explanations which immediately become mocked by students as some kind of sexual innuendo (see butter recipe, below). I won’t be cleaning the kitchen for an hour after the students “cleaned up”.

Next week will be the last week that I’ll try to convince whining kids to taste kale salad, that macaroni and cheese from scratch is better than Kraft, and little teeny bits of garlic are not going to kill you when they’ve been simmered for almost an hour in a Moroccan tagine.

Next week will be the last week that these kids will have to convince me that they’ve learned something this year.

I can’t wait until next week so I can miss all of this.

We made biscuits, homemade butter, and jam. I gave out two different recipes to six groups and came out with six completely different products. Biscuits are most importantly about texture. If you’re like us about every third batch will turn out like crackery hockey pucks instead of fluffy flaky puffs. Here are the two Biscuit Commandments:

Thou Shalt Not Knead the Dough Too Much.

Thou Shalt Roll the Dough 1” Thick.

If you follow these two important details, you will do well. After observing my students’ work, I’d have to add a few more pieces of advice:

wet dough is better (and never add more flour than is called for)

do not grease the cookie sheet

pay close attention to teaspoon vs. tablespoon markings

the butter and milk should be cold, cold, cold and work quickly, quickly, quickly

biscuit cutters, if you remember to bring them to class, would be good. cut down, don’t twist.

The recipes we used:

Cream Biscuits by Deb at Smitten Kitchen

Biscuit Recipe

Homemade Blackberry Jam by Savory Sweet Life

Homemade Butter

• 1 Cup cream
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. In a lidded jar, shake the cream and salt about one revolution per second. You’ll have butter pretty soon. If you are doing this in a high school class, use the two handed back and forth method with the jar held horizontally instead of the “shake weight” method. Trust me.

you don’t need this recipe to cook chili and rice

In Hawaii, there is no such thing as chili without rice. It would be blasphemous to eat it as anything but rice flavoring. You need the clean taste of rice to pair with the messy back-of-the-throat acid and warmth of chili.

Chili and rice is a common menu item at local style take out places and a Zippy’s specialty. Supposedly people will take Zippy’s chili back with them when they’re stuck on the mainland for college.

I decided to use chili as the first real test that my culinary students would have. Cooking is often about trusting your taste and testing out your understanding of foods. When you’ve had as much chili and rice as my students have had, you should know what looks like chili and what doesn’t.

So I let them at it.

I brought a lot of ingredients that normally go into chili recipes, and I asked them to put it together. The only help I gave them was to say that they should brown the meat first. And keep the temperature on the low side to avoid red splatter all over everyone’s faces.

Everyone got into their kitchens and started throwing stuff together. They stood over their chili pots protectively, keeping their concoctions from my criticism. Some looked like soups, some had no sauce at all. The students would go visit another group, look at their chili, and go back to the ingredient table and think about why their chili looked nothing like chili at all. Most of my students don’t really read the recipes I give them anyway, so it was better that they only had their instincts to guide them here.

By the end I had 6 very different tasting pots of chili. But everyone one of them could be classified as such. There was smoky chili, bacon chili, basic chili, vegetable laden chili, no beans chili, and watery chili. After everyone declared theirs to be the best and took their portions home, I threw the leftovers together and had enough for dinner for my family and our neighbors.

So I guess they can cook. I was a proud Mama.

And they won’t starve when they go to college, with no Zippy’s in sight.

Chili

The ingredients included in every chili recipe (all veggies are chopped or minced as desired):

• tomato sauce or tomato paste
• salt
• cumin
• beef stock or bouillon
• cayenne pepper or chili powder or both

The ingredients included in almost every chili recipe:

• ground beef (you can get fancy and go with real beef, cubed)
• kidney beans (cooked)
• garlic
• brown or white sugar
• coriander
• dried oregano
• onion
• canned tomato

The ingredients that are optional but often good in chili, maybe not all together:

• peppers (bell or hot as desired)
• chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (canned)
• bacon
• corn
• tomatoes
• cilantro
• different kinds of beans (cooked)
• canned pumpkin
• cocoa powder
• Worcestershire sauce
• Tabasco sauce
• carrot
• zucchini

Basic Chili Directions

1. Brown the meat in a heavy skillet over medium high heat. Drain the rendered fat off and set the meat aside. Fry up the bacon if using.
2. In a tablespoon of oil over medium heat, saute the onions until translucent and just beginning to brown. Add other chopped veggies, if using and cook about 5 minutes. Put the onions and and meat in a saucepan over medium low heat and add the tomato sauce or paste and some beef stock (or bouillon mixed with water). Add the beans. Add spices to taste. Simmer until thickened or add more beef stock or tomato sauce as needed. I personally love the canned pumpkin in my chili.
3. Serve with rice. Plenny of it.

Bacon Wrapped Enoki

Or: “Attack of the squid people!”

They do look a bit freakish.

Their pink striped bondage just accentuates those little bobbly heads.

Even so, who can resist that bacon flavor clinging to that velvet stem?

Not I. Not I.

(Apologies to my vegan friends. I promise to stick to untied and free vegetables in my next post.)

The hot pan sears the bacon belt. No toothpicks or handcuffs necessary.

The daughter who swears she does not like mushrooms, could not keep her hands off of these.

Two days ago she wanted to chop mushrooms, just for fun. I said, “Ok, if you eat it too.” She did. Raw. And then asked for more.

She so definitely does not like mushrooms. No way. And don’t try to tell her otherwise.

P.S. Thank you, thank you, for your love and sympathy for my whining. I’ll try not to subject you to it. Often. Being a parent is character building in whole new levels.

A Readerly Interest in Food

This is an entry for the Kitchen Corner’s “Cook off” wherein I try to capture the moment I fell in love with food.

My love for food started when I started reading. As a child I spent most of my free time reading.

I consumed books late into the night, straining my eyes with a low lamp, and risking the wrath of a parent who wanted me well-rested for the day of school coming.

On Saturdays I threw my hands up with disgust when my mother interrupted me to require some chore—like vacuuming the stairs. I hated vacuuming the stairs. I would grit my teeth and scream, quietly so she couldn’t hear but loud enough to feel rebellious, “You ALWAYS interrupt me at the good part!”

I was always at the good part. Because I was always reading.

I had read every book in my house at least twice,

but, the ones I came back to again and again,

I savored those books.

The White Mountains made my mouth water at coffee and hard biscuits, as Will took refuge on a ship while escaping the Tripods. I had no idea what liverwurst was, but I wanted to reach in and steal that tomato and liverwurst sandwich Meg makes for her mother in the beginning scenes of A Wrinkle in Time. On his journey to pick up the dogs he ordered, Billy roasts a piece of salt pork and an egg to make a cornbread sandwich in Where the Red Fern Grows.

These were all foods I had never eaten or even seen. I only imagined that the hunger that these characters felt had never been better sated.

These dreamed meals were often homey and made in simple kitchens. They appealed to basic tastes of salt, sugar, and fat but they tasted, in my food memory, complex. Bitter coffee was a taboo in my house but in elementary school I breathed deeply when I walked by the teacher’s steaming mug, and have always savored that rich smell. The sweet acidic drip of the tomato slid under my tongue when Meg’s mother eats her sandwich in the kitchen light of night discussion. I felt kinship with Billy when he chews that salty sizzling egg sandwich, and chews the dry and wet layers together. I imagine him thoughtful at a campfire and the smoke adding a savory angle to the plateless meal.

My list of food memory associations in books I had read was longer than the number of foods I had eaten in real life.

Even now, the stroke of taste from a book is never as good as the ones in real life, however incredible the chef. At Nobu, I recently had a sous vide pork belly with a browned edge topped with jalapeno salsa. That bite was just perfect, but it will never match up to fill the hunger created by a thermos’d cream of tomato soup, lobster salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread, celery, carrots, black olives, two plums, a tiny basket of cherries, a cardboard shaker of salt, and vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles that Frances has in Russell Hoban’s classic Bread and Jam for Frances.

As Albert says: “That’s a good lunch.”

A lunch worth three Michelin stars, in my book.

Cornmeal Pancake Monte Cristo

This creation is based on some of the tastes I imagine in Billy’s campfire meal of salt pork, egg, and cornbread. I think the play on sweet/salty/savory created by the “monte cristo” effect is something that stays locked in my hungry memory.

makes about 3 "sandwiches”

For the pancakes

• 2/3 Cup yellow cornmeal
• 1/3 Cup flour
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 C buttermilk
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 egg
• extra unsalted butter to grease the pan

1. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk together until combined—but do not over mix.
2. Put a pat of butter into the pan and grease liberally. When the pan is hot, pour in about 1/3 C (maybe a little more) of the batter for each pancake—probably can fit in three at a time. When the top has a few bubbles and the edges look like they are starting to dry, flip and cook on the other side for about 30 more seconds.
3. Repeat with remaining batter.

For the sandwiches

• 9 thin slices of ham
• 3 eggs
• 3 two-oz slices of salty, hard cheese—I used comte
• 2 Tablespoons guava jam (other jams would work here, or even molasses)

1. After cooking the pancakes, butter the pan again and put the ham into the pan and warm on both sides. After removing the ham, cook the 3 eggs as you wish (over easy is good here).
2. Assemble the sandwiches while all your ingredients are still hot. Lay the first pancake on the plate and top with a piece of cheese. Put 3 slices of ham and 1 egg on top of that, and spread some jam on the 2nd pancake for the top (either putting the jam face down or up as desired). Repeat with the rest of the ingredients. Serve while hot.

My favorite fiction books for adults that also happen to have succulent food scenes: (links to Goodreads)

And Never Said a Word by Henrich Boll

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

What’s your favorite food scene from a book?

Love and Peanut Butter Chocolate Luvah Cake

I have been calling in all my favors.

Chances are, if you know me, you’ve done me a favor lately, whether you owe me one or not.

I need to thank those who wrote me letters of reference, featured my blog in the newspaper, invited us for dinner, helped edit my pictures, gave me advice, gave me pictures, listened to me complain, held my crying baby, gave my baby gifts (even from London), entertained my crazy kid, helped me do my work, and forgave me for my flakiness.

Oh, and thank you to the person who let me borrow 24 ramekins on a moment’s notice so I could make chocolate molten lava cakes with my culinary class.

Thank you, dear readers and commenters and people who have been so complimentary. You have helped keep up my spirits in this stressful time.

Special thanks to chocolate lava cakes that keep giving me reasons to show up and run nightly, and scales that never lie.

But the person I need to thank the most, our resident artist:

My love. I didn’t give you any credit in that article, and I’m feeling pretty silly for it. You’re the one who makes the magic happen. You are the glue that holds this crazy together.

I never make thank you cards, but sometimes I make thank you treats.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Luvah (Lava) Cake (serves 4)

(print this)

Confession: this is the easiest and fastest cake to make. Ever. I’ve made 5 chocolate lava cake recipes in the last two weeks and this lava cake base is my favorite for its ease and flavor. Some of my students found it to be too much chocolate while others were happily scraping their plates. Predictably, there were some students who preferred Hershey’s milk chocolate to Green and Black’s dark chocolate during our chocolate tasting lesson. Leave out the peanut butter if you like. Other add-ins we tried with my class were nutella, crushed oreo cookies and bananas. Experimenting is just a good excuse to make more.

• 5 oz dark or semisweet chocolate (semisweet chocolate chips do work here)
• 1/4 lb unsalted butter
• 3/4 Cup sugar
• 1/4 Cup flour
• 3 eggs
• 4 teaspoons peanut butter

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter 4 4oz ramekins (the whole inside, not just the bottom). Don’t be shy with the butter. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and put into a microwave safe bowl with the butter. Microwave for 1 minute, stirring after thirty seconds. After 1 minute stir and make sure it is completely melted. Microwave in 20 second intervals if it is not.
2. In a separate medium bowl, with a wooden spoon mix the sugar, flour and eggs until completely combined.
3. Add the chocolate mixture slowly into the eggs while stirring until one uniform color.
4. Put about 1/4 C of the batter into each of the ramekins. Place a teaspoon of peanut butter into each ramekin on top of the batter. Cover with more batter until about 3/4 way full.
5. Bake the cakes for 10-15 minutes. The time will depend on the actual heat of your oven and the thickness of the ramekin walls. I check often and remove them just when the sides look softly set, the top looks dry and beginning to crack, but it still jiggles in the middle just a little. If you overcook it you will have just a very moist chocolate-y cake (which is good, too). Mine took 13 minutes and two of the ramekins were perfect while the other ones (with thinner walls) were slightly over done.
6. Softly pull the sides of the cake away from the walls of the ramekins with a knife or spoon, and invert onto a plate. You can also eat it straight from the ramekin. Dust with powdered sugar or garnish with a strawberry if desired. Serve immediately with ice cream, milk, or something to balance the extreme chocolate goodness.

Ok, one more. For the fans.

Hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day. Make this for yourself even.

Macadamia Nut Tomato Pesto

“What’s wrong with these tomatoes, Miss?” a girl asked me as I was running from group to group during cooking day in my culinary class.

I stopped, mid-crazy. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with them?”

“They’re so red. And soft. Are these rotten?”

I scrunched my eyes up and studied her face. She wasn’t kidding. “Hmmm. No. They’re perfect. Maybe you didn’t know that store bought tomatoes are usually never ripe. And they’re crunchy.” Disgusting, too, I stopped myself from adding.

She still looked skeptical.

When I had decided to make the trifecta of pasta sauces, pesto, alfredo, and marinara, with my class, I didn’t know they weren’t yet familiar with basics of the kitchen. These teens had never been to a land where tomatoes are not crunchy, the stoves are not all electric, and where pasta sauce doesn’t come out of a jar.

So in between looking for the source of the unlit gas stove smell and explaining that one clove of garlic wasn’t the same as the entire head, I was smacking myself on the forehead for my ambitious plan. When I had done my planning, my thought was, “Oh yeah, this will be easy peasy.” 

Maybe I should have stuck to box cake mixes.

Each group got a basic recipe for one of the sauces and a box of pasta. The groups had to come ask me for cooking tools and ingredients, as the kitchens are not stocked. I quickly realized that in addition to the two stockpots I brought from my own home, there was only 1 more in the whole classroom. When representatives from each group came to me to get ingredients they’d forgotten how much of whatever it was they were supposed to get. Most forgot to get the water boiling until about half way through class, so we were cutting it close to finishing a 20 minute dish in 70 minutes.

The week before I had taught them about plating (whatever little I know) and we were supposed to do a plating and photography session with the pasta, but since we were running down to the wire this is about as good as I got:

Success.

And I guarantee you that some of them will still crack a jar of Prego for dinner this weekend.

But at least they know that parmesan cheese isn’t actually that nasty stuff you get in a green can.

Over the weekend I was looking at the leftover tomatoes I had picked up from the Shintaku’s farm, Green Growers, in Hau’ula. They have some lovely tomatoes and amazingly priced compared to the store. Terry was nice enough to send a few pounds my way for free since I was using them for my class.

I thought about the price of pine nuts climbing 300% and the mildew that’s making sweet basil scarce in our islands right now. It suddenly made sense to throw that basic pesto recipe out, however tasty.

No matter how expensive mac nuts are, I bet they’re cheaper than those pine nuts. Pine nuts are going for $30 a bag at the Costco here.

Macadamia Nut Tomato Pesto

This pesto is similar to a marinara but the meatiness of the macadamia nuts gives the sauce some girth. It clings better and the nuts cut a bit of the acid in the tomatoes as well. The sauce goes best with a long pasta, like spaghetti or linguini.

Oh, and use real tomatoes, please. The soft, red ones.

• 2/3 C macadamia nuts
• 1 lb tomatoes (about 6 small or 4 medium)
• 2 Tablespoons loosely packed Thai basil (or 1 tsp dried if none is available)
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/4 C grated parmesan or Romano cheese (not that they’re the same, but Romano is an option in a pinch)
• 4 Tablespoons of olive oil, divided
• 1/2 tsp salt or more to taste
• 1 pinch sugar
• 1 lb pasta such as linguini, fettuccine, spaghetti or bucatini

1. Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil and add salt to taste. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
2. While the pasta is cooking, in a skillet over medium heat, dry toast the macadamia nuts until lightly browned, stirring frequently (about 3-4 minutes).
3. Roughly chop the tomatoes, basil, and garlic. Put these in a food processor/cuisinart fitted with the blade attachment. Add the macadamia nuts, grated parmesan cheese, 3 Tablespoons of olive oil and process until pureed, about 30 seconds. The macadamia nuts should be small but visible.
4. In the now empty skillet, heat the final tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add the tomato sauce and stir frequently until the color changes to become more red and the sauce is reduced just slightly, about 5 minutes. Add salt as necessary to taste, and a pinch of sugar.
5. Add the pasta directly to the sauce in the skillet. Toss to coat. Serves 6-8, Serve with more parmesan if you wish.