Braisin' Hussy

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Wow. I know I've ragged on Kepler's in the past (come on, seven dollars an hour?!), but I always though they'd be there, pretentiously selling books to pretentious yuppies.

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Japan #3, the amazing 40-minute bread from Yakitate!! Zack blogged about it recently, posting the recipe, which was incredibly helpful to me, because a) Kuroyanagi speeds through the directions in the anime, and b) leaves out the yeast ingredient.

I made two wee loaves. The first one sucked because I didn't really know how my new microwave works with power settings. I thought I had been entering Power Level 1 5 or whatever, but I had been blasting the poor dough on full power. So yeah, I sure did kill the yeast on the first loaf (instant yeast, by the way). The second one was more successful. I'm still going to have to futz with the microwave settings a bit (Power Level 1 instead of 2 for the fermenting bits, I think). I used active dry yeast in the second loaf. I also had to stretch the milk with a little bit of water (I only borrowed half a cup from my parents). The baking time should be extended, I think, by five to ten minutes.

This recipe makes tiny little loaves of bread. They're like rolls, really. Dense rolls. I think more fermentation time is needed, to tell the truth. I will mess with the recipe and if I make any progress, I'll let you know.

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Monday, August 29, 2005

Blueberry Crumble
Adapted from Good Eats

1/2 cup AP flour
1/3 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar, separated
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup crushed animal crackers
2 Tbsp butter, chilled and chopped
12 oz. frozen blueberries
2 Tbsp cornstarch

Heat oven to 350.

Place the flour, 1/3 cup of sugar, nuts, oats, and crackers into a large mixing bowl and combine. Work the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands until it is crumbly.

In another bowl, mix the frozen berries, 2 tablespoons of sugar, cornstarch and a 1/2 cup of the crisp topping. Place the berry mixture into a baking dish and top with the rest of the crisp topping. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes. Let rest for 15 minutes, and serve with vanilla ice cream.

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Sunday, August 28, 2005

I disagree with Cook's Illustrated.

Shocking, isn't it? I just finished reading the latest issue (I want to try their butternut squash risotto), and I have to say, I was pretty disappointed with their findings in the canned whole tomatoes taste-test. Why? My beloved Muir Glen Fire-Roasted Tomatoes ended up at the bottom of the list, in second to last place. Oh, the Jonsauce is SO GOOD with them! You strain the tomatoes and boil the reserved liquid down into tomato sauce. It's tangy and wonderful. Of course, my Jonsauce is kind of to the point where it's better as a stew than a spaghetti sauce, which I guess defeats the purpose.

Also, I guess they don't sell S&W products on the East Coast. They're my favorite plain canned diced tomatoes. And the best garbanzo beans, bar none. Trader Joe's canned whole tomatoes with basil are pretty good and quite inexpensive, and I love the Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies for salsa and tortilla soup.

I made a berry crumble on Friday, inspired by the latest Good Eats episode. My recipe is similar but differs slightly from the official Food Network version- I'll post it soon.

I've been perusing Mediterranean Street Food a lot. I want to make r'ghäyef and baraziq.

We Love Katamari, the sequel to Katamari Damacy, comes out on the sixth of September (according to the guy I talked to at EB Games, although everywhere I look, the date seems to be different). I'm very excited.

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Thursday, August 25, 2005

I rolled up a new character at D&D last night. I'm not sure I want to continue playing with Jessa. She's useful for the healing- my god, is she useful- but playing her isn't all that fun. She's pretty much useless apart from the healing and the two firebursts she can cast a day. The new character is a litorian hawk totem warrior. Litorians are lion-people. They get a +2 to dexterity but a -2 to wisdom. Hawk totem warriors are archers.

I'll see if this new character is worth keeping around.

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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

It's 5:20am and I'm at work. I was supposed to come in at seven and work for four hours, but I woke up at 4:34am and couldn't get back to sleep. I figured, "Well, I could just take two hours off today." I'm meeting my friend Ysabel in San Francisco at noon. Yay! I haven't seen her in ages. It's either been since Christmas or last summer. Ridiculous.

I had a lovely dinner with my parents last night. I sliced my thumb open on the foil seal of a container of olive oil. That was less lovely.

I should actually get to work, since I'm here.

(Okay, it's weird watching the sun rise at work.)

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Monday, August 22, 2005

The picture at the top of Salon today- the morphing John Edwards into Albert Einstein- is terrible. I mean, there's worse examples of "what not to do with Photoshop," but this one's pretty bad.

Annoying weekend. I made soup that was too spicy and bread that was too salty. Curses!

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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Oh, sad. If I remember correctly, this was the bread that Dad used to bring back from California when we lived in North Carolina. A company had been courting him, and whenever he returned from a trip, he brought back Parisian sourdough bread. We called (and call it, actually) DSB - Delicious Sourdough Bread. However, I don't think I've bought a loaf since we moved out here twelve years ago. I remember it being good... it's just that as I got older, sourdough wasn't really my thing. I guess it's my fault they're closing.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Oh, Tivo. It's so cute when you think you can offer me suggestions.

It's been about a year since the last time my Tivo recorded something as a suggestion that I hadn't previously given a thumbs-up to. I had a problem with it suggesting wacky things, like quilting programs and fishing. I took a few hours one day and went through everything in the program guide, thumbs upping and downing every program I saw. Apparently, enough time has passed since then so my Tivo thinks it can start suggesting things again that I haven't okayed. I guess it got confused since I just promoted a bunch of shows from suggestion status to Season Passville.

Still: "No, Tivo! I do not want to watch a show about plastic surgery gone wrong! Bad Tivo! Bad!"

I'm going to have to train it again. Gr.

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Monday, August 15, 2005

I'm caught up on Yakitate. The latest subtitled episode (35) presents the characters with a challenge- create a bread in under an hour. What's that, you say? Make a quick bread? No dice. This has to be a yeast bread (well, they said it had to be "fermented," which I'm guessing means yeast, not chemical leaveners). What could they make? I've been thinking about this. I really have no clue. Instant yeast means you can cut out the five to ten minutes of blooming. The "solar hands" thing cuts down on... I guess some of the rising time. ("Solar hands" and "solar gauntlets" never seemed to be a big advantage to me, personally. It seems particularly ill-suited for pastries in which the butter has to stay cold, like biscuits, scones, pie crusts, and croissants. [Although Suwabara negated that effect by plunging his hands into dry ice, the big weirdo.]) I wonder if using beer would be allowed. I mean, it's natural yeast.

Here are a couple of relatively quick fermented breads found in Mediterranean Street Cooking, which I took out earlier from the library.

Ramadan Bread with Dates. It takes seventy minutes and uses active dry yeast. Take out the ten minutes of blooming, and you have a sixty minute bread. The description, however, says it "ends up more like a cookie than a bread," which I guess would throw it out. Smaller seems better for this time limit though. Smaller things bake faster.

Moroccan Flat Bread. Prep time for the dough is fifteen minutes, and then they are shaped and filled. Cooking takes 6-8 minutes in a frying pan. That's totally under an hour-able. Sadly, I think this also doesn't work. Naan, tortillas, crepes... do these count as breads?

Argh! What is it?!

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Zucchini Bread
Cook's Illustrated

1 pound zucchini, ends trimmed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp lemon juice
6 Tbsp (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Generously coat 9 by 5-inch loaf pan with vegetable oil spray.

Shred and squeeze zucchini to remove excess liquid. Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, and salt together in large bowl. Whisk sugar, yogurt, eggs, lemon juice, and melted butter together in medium bowl until combined.

Gently fold yogurt mixture and zucchini into flour mixture using rubber spatula until just combined. Transfer batter to prepared pan and smooth surface.

Bake until loaf is golden brown and skewer inserted in center comes out with few crumbs attached, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to cool at least 1 hour before serving. (Zucchini bread can be wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for up to 3 days).

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Friday, August 12, 2005

I finally moved the microwave from my car to atop my refrigerator. I was able to get it hooked up- the problem was not that the socket had been painted over, but that it was only a two-pronged socket. Luckily, I had a couple adaptors that I had bought for my old apartment, so that's all good. Yay! Now I can make popcorn. And defrost stuff if I haven't thought about doing it enough in advance for the counter or refrigerator to work.

I'm going over to Lydia's tonight. I'm bringing the rest of my zucchini bread (there's about half of it left), along with some munchy-type things I didn't make. And possibly the gingersnap cookies that are in Jon and Ryan's freezer (if I feel like stopping at their house on the way to the East Bay- probably a 30% chance of that happening). Lydia has promised drink concoctions. She's having a clothing exchange thingy with some friends. The other lasses are bringing clothes and fabric, but not me. My donation to this shindig is food, because ain't no way I would ever, EVER fit into her clothes. And mine would fall off of her.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2005

I received an awesome gift yesterday. Thank you, George and Karen! You will all get to see it once I have it prepared properly. SO COOL.

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Tuesday, August 09, 2005

I fail at loaf shaping. I made french bread (from Mastering the Art of French Cooking) over the weekend. It's a bread with a high water content. I ended up kneading it with a bench scraper because it was so sticky. I just... I don't have the skills (yet) to make loaves. I make amoebas that taste like bread. Good bread, though. The smell might have been a little too yeasty, but I really liked the flavor of the bread. I'm annoyed by the loaf problem and intend to work on it.

In other bread news, I made a decent zucchini bread. I used the recipe in the latest issue of Cook's Country, from the people who brought you Cook's Illustrated, but instead of just putting out twelve issues of that a year, they want you to buy two subscriptions. Gr. Anyway, although I didn't whisk together the dry ingredients before mixing them into the wet, I still think it turned out okay. There may be places where the cinnamon and allspice concentration is a bit higher than others. I'll whisk the dry ingredients next time. I didn't really have enough space. It's quite a bit harder to work in my new kitchen. Very little counter space.

The recipe for the zucchini bread will go up sometime in the next week. As for the french bread, that'll go up when I'm satisfied with all aspects of it.

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Friday, August 05, 2005

Wow. I am now the owner of the world's largest microwave. Seriously. It's ginormous. It will be going on top of my refrigerator as soon as I am able to pull the fridge out from the wall a bit and see what the heck seems to be covering the other electrical socket back there. This may require me talking to my landlord, but I'm going to see her on Sunday, anyway.

I made granita! It was good! (It actually worked, which was the surprising thing. I don't expect granita to work, but it does.)

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Blackberry/Raspberry Granita

1 cup frozen blackberries, raspberries, or a mix, thawed, with whatever liquid accumulates
1/2 cup water
1 tsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
Pinch of salt

Combine the berries, water, and lemon juice in a food processor or blender. Process until smooth. Force through a sieve and discard the seeds. Add the sugar and salt and stir until completely combined, about 90 seconds. Pour into a 8x8x2" baking dish. Freeze for half an hour, then stir vigorously with a fork, mashing up any bits that have coalesced. Freeze for another half hour and repeat. Continue doing this for about three hours.

Or, if you don't want to babysit your freezer, pour the mixture into ice cube trays. Let sit in the freezer until solid (or as close to solid as they'll get), then pop out of the tray and process in a food processor or blender until finely chopped.

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Thursday, August 04, 2005

I'm going to make granita later with blackberries and raspberries (I think I have enough sugar left to do this). But first I need to stop by St. Ned's and pick up a microwave. Thanks, Sara! You rock!

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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Last night I made scrounge pasta. Basically, what I did was see what I had that might fit together well, and threw it on some spaghetti. I had one sausage, some green onions, garlic, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, and eggs. So I took the sausage out of its casing, browned it, cooked the onions and garlic in its fat, then combined it with the hot pasta (not thoroughly drained) and a beaten egg (the heat of the pasta and water would cook it enough), then stirred in some parmesan and bread crumbs. Oh, and added salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg. The nutmeg was a good idea. It was goodish. I mean, I ate it. If I were to make something similar in the future, I'd use a pasta shape, not a strand. It's always interesting to see what you can make out of what you have sitting in your fridge/pantry.

I finished Ryan's fruitcake on Monday. Yes, the fruitcake that she gave me for Christmas. It was still good in the sense that it hadn't spoiled, and it was still GOOD in the sense that Ryan makes a stupendous fruitcake. Now I'm sad it's gone.

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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Not dead, just having connectivity issues.

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