Like a Kid in a Candy Shop

What a wonderful Sunday I had. I was lucky enough to score an invite to the food bloggers picnic. It was great to see bloggers that I had met before. Connecting new faces with blogs I had read or will read was an adventure. The people, place and food were marvelous. Food and beverage was plentiful and tasty. It was almost a sensory overload. A park setting full of talented people who all like the same things I do. Hot Damn! So many bloggers, so little time. I really wanted to spend a day with each person there. That would take the better part of several months. I'll just have to savor the short time I had.

Thanks to the hosts and people who put the shindig together. That's a hard job and was appreciated.

I had intention of placing video on my site but was unhappy with the results. So I humbly submit photos of the dishes I brought to the picnic. There was more cameras on property than at White House photo opportunity. In the best sense life was truly a picnic Sunday.

Grilled veg with lemon vinaigrette

Pasta salad antipasto style

Cheap and Easy Breakfast

It's back to school time again. I got a flock of kids, and their friends, who like to come over and eat at our house. It seems like the troops are always hungry for massive amounts of food. When kids leave home for school or work they face the challenge of feeding themselves on a small budget and limited cooking facilities. Fast food factories produce cheap and easy offerings, but lack nutritional value and add calories. I came up with a few breakfast menus that could made using only a microwave and a toaster oven. I offered several of my coworkers a week of free breakfasts so I could test the dishes and get some feedback. In fact these dishes would be great for office workers to fix up in the breakroom. Each dish was less than $2 in cost, most around $1.50.

Monday - Smoked salmon with cream cheese, tomato, and capers

Tuesday - Nutrigrain toaster waffles with warm berry compote, maple syrup, butter and sausages

Wednesday -yogurt parfait with raspberries, blueberries and granola

Thursday - Sausage and egg breakfast burrito


Friday- Scrambled eggs hollandaise with tomatoes


I cheated and used Aunt Penny's Hollandaise from a can.

All breakfasts were well received and easy to prepare. You can control how healthy you want your food be. In reseaching this post it came to my attention that some schools and companies do not allow toaster ovens. Check before you try this method.

Something From Nothing

I've always admired people who make food from what most people throw away. Use every part of the chicken except the cluck. Two of my favorite examples.

1) The "baby" carrots we purchase at the local mega-mart are not babies at all. Some wise person developed a machine to shape the carrots that are broken in processing. Nice football shapes that are great for crudities.

2) "Broccoli slaw" is made from the stem ends left over after the easy to market crowns are removed.

My best effort to date was convincing my friend to save the ugly slices of tomato that he threw out from his sandwich shop. The tomatoes were cored and pushed through a slicing machine. The top two slices and the bottom slice were discarded for appearance. After the busy weekend I would pick up a couple of quarts of slices. Off to the food processor for a killer salsa.

Last week I read an article in the New York Times by Florence Fabricant. It talked about bartenders using "tomato water" to build some great summer drinks. The following night I was making salsa fresca for a Mexican dinner. Brandywine tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalapeno pepper, salt, pepper, fresh lime juice and garlic combined for a tasty salsa. I let it sit to meld the flavors. In the bottom of the bowl juice formed. In the past I would have poured the liquid off into the sink. If left in the bowl things get a little soggy. This time I poured the liquid through a strainer and refrigerated it. At cocktail time I combined the spicy result with vodka, garnished it with tiny tomatoes and a pickled jalapeno. I called it a salsa martini. Something from nothing indeed!

Salsa Martini

We're Rolling Now

I'm fascinated by food. I love to eat, cook, photograph, and talk about all persuasions of cuisine. Some intimidate me more than others. Take Summer Rolls for example. I go to Vietnamese restaurants and gobble them up by the bunch. I've never tried to make them because of that flimsy rice paper wrapper. I just knew my fat fingers would destroy any I tried to roll. I decided that it was time to give them a try. I'm not going to give a recipe here. The internet is full of them. Just Google Summer Roll Recipes. I'm going to act as more of a motivater here, a catalyst if you will. You can do this! The rice wrappers are tough little guys and can take the abuse.

Mis en place is the key. I swore that I would never use that phrase again since I heard it at every pre service line-up I ever attended at Hotel Fancy. It makes perfect sense to use that term here. I think the translation from French is " in its place" or something like that. It means get your "stuff" together before you begin the process. Decide what your going to stuff into the rolls have it all set up and then begin. We stayed with the classics for our effort. Shrimp, noodles, lettuce, shredded carrot, cilantro and mint. Like a burrito, you could wrap just about anything. Soak the rice paper wrappers and drain on a clean towel. Then stuff and roll em. No worries mate, they're easy peasey!

Mis en place

Summer rolls

Now a word about dipping sauces. This was a family food adventure. My wife, daughters and I took turns wrapping rolls. My first born daughter has an affinity for what I call "refrigerator door dipping sauces". Open the refrigerator door and create. Here's the list of ingredients she used for two wonderful sauces. Amounts are to taste.

Peanut Sauce

Peanut butter
garlic
siracha
soy sauce
sesame oil
olive oil
ginger
rice vinegar
ketchup
water

Citrus Sauce

orange juice
lemon juice (about 1/3 of the orange juice you added)
soy sauce
sesame oil (just a bit)
olive oil (just a bit)
scallions
garlic
ginger
splenda
siracha

I'm sure the recipe police will be after me for the lack of measurements but what the hey.

What's a Shawerma??

I know that I'm a Last Minute Louie on this subject. The local papers have announced the arrival of the Falafel Hut in San Rafael. Other bloggers have tasted and reported their findings. I just wanted to find out what the heck a Shawerma is. Never had one, thought I'd give it a go.

After a lovely trip to the dump and hour in Home Depot, lunch was definitely in order. We trucked on over to fourth street and got lucky with parking. It was just after eleven and the hut was slamming. My wife ordered the Falafel Deluxe ($5.95). The standard pita bread sandwich with the addition of potato and Baba Gannoush. The portion was large and tasted great.

My Beef Shawerma ($6.95) was a huge piece of flatbread, rolled burrito style, with healthy portions of meat, tomato, seasoned onions, pickle and a creamy sauce. Was it good? Move over burritos there's a new game in town ready to take over my food world. I wanted to get more information about the product so I slipped back inside to ask. I would have needed riot gear to get past the ten people lined up waiting to order. I grabbed a takeout menu and beat a hasty retreat. My mission on the next trip to the hut is to find out what's listed on the menu as foul mudams. So much to learn.

P.S. normally I would enclose a photo of the Shawerma here. It came out blurry. It's more mysterious this way anyhow.

Falafel Hut

1109 Fourth Street

San Rafael, Ca.

415-259-0440

Corny

It's August already and I haven't had any corn. Why you ask? Because my anti-social attitude has kept me away from crowds. All winter long I anticipate the summer season and now that it's here, I'm all bah humbug! In the past I've attended more markets in a week than I have all this year. That reminds me of a story. Joe decides that winning the lottery would solve all his problems. Believing in the power of prayer, he prays that he would win the lottery. This goes on for months and finally he asks God why he hasn't won yet. A voice from heaven vibrates the room and says " Joe you have to buy a ticket first". In that spirit, in order to obtain good fresh corn I must haul my butt down to the Novato Farmer's Market. I forgot to get the name of the farm. Just look for the pretty blonde lady with a white pickup and boxes of fresh corn in front of her. Her sign says " this corn was picked today at 2PM". It now being 5 PM I figure it's about as fresh as I can get.

There is about as many ways to cook corn as there were ways Bubba Gump cooked shrimp. Boiled corn, steamed corn, corn fritters, corn salad...you get the picture. I just husked the ears and rolled them around on the hot barbecue. Added butter, salt and pepper and I got "heavenly" corn. I just needed an attitude adjustment.