weekends, i love you.

This weekend was so fun that I'm not even really feeling that bitter about it being Monday! I like my weekends with a little laying about and a little bit action-packed. This one did not disappoint.

Friday I met up with Lauren to meet one of the dogs she sits for because I'm going to fill in for her this weekend. I had some time to kill before I met up with them after work, so I went to Trader Joes and got a couple of things and flirted withe some of their cute dykployees. Always a good time. Then, met up with Lauren and Dolce (a lil' maltese), and we took a little walk in the park and hung out for a bit. Then I went home, made a big salad with some jalapeno chips and mango salsa on the side (chips from TJ's, mango salsa from Reyna), watched a movie (Fixing Frank, 4 stars), pet and scratched and massaged the China-Bear and the K-Bear and we all passed out around 10:30. Good times.

Then, I was up at the cracka on Saturday because E-dawg and I were headed off for our raw milk roadtrip. We took a lovely drive (well, it was on 28 which isn't all that lovely, but still) out to Worthington to Le-Ara Holsteins/Wilson Farms. It's owned by two sisters, and we met Lara who I'd been emailing with. She's the cutest lady-farmer in all the land! And, they're planning on expanding into making a bottling facility so that they would be able to sell the raw milk in stores (like, the co-op, WF, etc.). It was a sweet little farm, and the cows seemed happy and clean (E's mom was concerned about them being clean), and with a gajillion barn cats hanging out looking cute (and also clean).



Then, we drove back to the 'Burgh, hung out for a while at Beleza, then in the courtyard at Zeke's house (where I was dogsitting) and shared cook books and recipes until we were hungry enough to warrant a salad. Nerdy and delicious. My favorite.

After E-dawg left, Zeke and I took a big walk and then just chilled out around the house, read, played around on the internet. Then I made a big ol' pile of Eric Gower's Breakaway Fries and watched some tv (cable!). But, he said that his are done in 5-7 minutes. Mine were more like 20-25 minutes. Hmmm. I forgot to take a picture, but they were freakin' awesome and very easy. I used four large potatoes cut into shoestrings. Heated 1 T. butter with 1 T. olive oil in a large skillet and added about 1 t. of chipotle chili powder. Pan fried them until they were golden brown and crispy-ish, and then shook on a bunch of paprika salt (just paprika pulverized with some coarse sea salt). Served it with a dollop of ketchup and a dollop of mayo. Not light, but mmm, mmm good.

Sunday morning Ellen and Kara came over for a raw milk waffle brunch. We were still at Zeke's house, so had the awesome courtyard for an al fresco brunch. Our menu was:
-coffee with raw milk and sugar
-orange juice
-wholewheat "almost as good as buttermilk" waffles, made with raw milk (I forgot to bring this recipe, but I'll try to remember it tomorrow--from Doggie's recipe from the beach)
-waffle toppings: ricotta cheese, sliced strawberries, the most gorgeous raspberries I've ever seen that Ellen foraged in the North Side, maple syrup and Richard's "country honey"
-Kara's tomatoes stuffed with an avocado-melon salad (I'm having the leftovers of this for lunch today!) with lemon cucumbers and watercress (was that watercress?)

Hot damn. That was some good eatin'!





Wow, that was good. I wish I had another waffle right now.

Then, E-dawg and hit up the Riverview Park pool (home of our favorite graffiti: "you know you eat shit") to cool off, then I met up with The Gooch for a Scrabble Showdown. She beat me. Again. I cannot abide this.

I had plans to check out the Fair Is Fair show last night to see some jazzercizing quipsters and other fun times, but I was pooped by then. Plus, Sunday nights are for relaxing, right? I went home and hung with my babies, watched the second half of a movie I'd started on Friday night (The Devil's Backbone, 3 stars), then hung with Zeke, read and went to bed early.


Ahhhh. I feel super today.

my newest love

I'd been hesitant to post about my newest love because I have his book from the library, and there's only one copy in circulation, and I want to keep it forever. But, I just checked the library site, and now there's a dang hold on my copy so I won't be able to renew it. Crap. Buying new books does not fit into the budget, but I'm in love with this chef and his cookbook. Whoever has the hold on this book--a pox upon you!

So, anyway, the book is The Breakaway Cook by Eric Gower.

Last night I made two of the recipes from his book. The Edamame Salad with Pickled Ginger, Maccha Salt and Roasted Almonds and the Crispy, Tangy Tofu. Holy cow. Both were amazing. Very light and perfect for a summer dinner. I made them, and took them over to Maggie's with a jug of my homebrewed kombucha. Yum.


Eric's whole philosophy of "breakaway cooking" is that:

A breakaway cook is, above all, someone who loves great home cooking without excessive fuss – it’s all about keeping things very simple and accessible. Simplicity is what distinguishes breakaway cooking from fusion food, which often muddies the waters with needless and excessive complexity. Breakaway cooking reaches all over the globe for inspiration and ingredients to produce easy, no-fuss food. The flavors are bright and fresh, and the ideas are simple yet sweeping.

Breakaway cooks aren’t fancy restaurant chefs trying to achieve cutting-edge or trendy results. They typically work solo, or if they’re very lucky sometimes have a friend or family member to help out, and they typically work in imperfect kitchens, with imperfect tools, limited budgets, and limited time to cook.

A breakaway cook is someone who's willing to take a culinary leap by combining everyday staples—chicken, eggs, common vegetables, pasta—with an international bazaar of readily available ingredients: miso, green tea, tamarind, chutney, star anise, pomegranate molasses, lemongrass, ginger and galangal . . . the list seems to grow everyday. The Breakaway Cook shows home cooks how to take these "global flavor blasts" down from the shelf and use them in new, time-saving ways. These intense flavors then get combined with the freshest of local organic produce, and are woken up even more with the liberal use of excellent salts, citrus, fresh herbs, and good olive oils and vinegars.

I love his style, and I LOVE the way those recipes tasted. And, they were really easy and straightforward. I had to make a couple substitutions/omissions, and it was still amazing. I'm especially down with his ideas of making flavored salts and vinegars as a simple way to infuse your cooking with "flavor blasts". I made his maccha salt last night for the edamame recipe, and used it today on some hard-boiled eggs with my lunch. So delicious!

Here's the tofu recipe:

Crispy, Tangy Tofu
serves 4 [ek: uh, this served 2 and I could've totally eaten more]
from The Breakaway Cook, p. 100

zest and juice (about 1/4 c.) of 1 large lemon, preferably Meyer
zest and juice or 1 orange
2 T. carrot juice [ek: i didn't have carrot juice, so just used water]
1 T. honey
1 T. soy sauce [ek: i used Bragg's liquid aminos]
pinch of cayenne
3 scant T. rice flakes or fine dry bread crumbs [ek: i used panko]
pinch of kosher salt
pinch of freshly crushed black pepper
1 block silken tofu, drained, then wrapped in paper towels to absorb moisture
1 egg yolk
1 generous T. unsalted butter
1 t. chopped fresh chives (optional)

Put the citrus juices into a small saucepan, add the carrot juice, honey, soy sauce and cayenne, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer while you prepare the tofu. [ek: i actually added the zest, too. when i read through the recipe i thought he forgot to add it, but i'd do it again. it made the sauce extra citrusy and delicious].

Put the rice flakes (or bread crumbs), salt and pepper in a coffee or spice grinder and pulse a few times. Be sure the paper towels have absorbed as much water as possible from the tofu, then slice the tofu along its "equator", creating 2 large flattish slabs. Cut each of those in half, giving you 4 pieces. Spoon the egg yolk on one side of each piece and evenly spread the rice-flake crust over them. Heat the butter in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat and saute the tofu, crust side down, for about 5 minutes, until nicely browned. Carefully flip the pieces over with a spatula and briefly cook the other side, about 2 minutes. Pour some of the reduced sauce into a warm plate or shallow bowl and slide the tofu into the center of the sauce, crispy side up. Top with the orange and lemon zest and the chives, if desired.

And, here's the edamame salad recipe.

Edamame Salad with Pickled Ginger, Maccha Salt, and Roasted Almonds
serves 5 or 6 [ek: Mags and I each had two helpings of this, and I had one helping left over for lunch today]
from The Breakaway Cook, p. 66

1 T. unsalted butter
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c. minced shallot
3 c. cooked edamame
1/2 c. pickled ginger (p. 38), juilienned [he makes his own pickled ginger, which I'm totally going to do, but I didn't have that ready, so just used it from a jar]
1/4 c. vinegar from Pickled Ginger
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced into irregular shapes
freshly crushed black pepper
maccha salt (p. 36)
1/4 c. roasted almonds, roughly chopped

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a small pan over medium-low heat. Add the galic and shallot and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large serving bowl and add the edamame, pickled ginger, vinegar and avocado. Mix and sprinkle in plenty of pepper. Divide the salad among individual plates, dust each serving liberally with the maccha salt, and top with the almonds.

I can't wait to try as many of the recipes as possible before I have to return the book (on 7/18, you bastard! no, not you. that person who has a hold on the book). I will definitely be buying a copy of this when I'm more financially solvent.

In other news, I've been on a quest to track down a source for raw dairy. At the beach Doggie made some waffles with raw milk, butter and cottage cheese that were amazing. I haven't been able to stop thinking of them, so I emailed around and found a couple sources for raw milk and cheese (alas, no butter or cottage cheese yet, but one farm said they may start making yogurt soon). E-dawg and I are making a little road trip out to Le-Ara Holsteins/Wilson Farms tomorrow to pick up some milk. And, then she and Kara and I are making the waffles tomorrow. I'm getting some strawberries and ricotta cheese (the raw cultured cottage cheese was sorta like ricotta) and maple syrup, and Ellen's brining some of her friend Richard's country honey and some raspberries. Kara is going to make "something complimentary", and I can't wait to see what that is because she's an insanely good cook. Now, that is what a Sunday morning is all about!

Oh, and the kombucha. I finished one batch on Sunday (took about a week and a half to get to the acidity that tasted good to me), and started two more. I bottled what I'd made, and have been drinking it up (made about a gallon). It's not as effervescent as the stuff you get in the store (I'm thinking that's probably because it's mixed with fruit puree which gives it something to eat and build up pressure), but it's delicious and I feel good when I drink it. The two mothers that will come from the batches I'm making now are spoken for, and one of the ones from the batch after that, but if you're interested in making your own, just let me know and I'll put you on The Mother List.

back in bidness

Well, quite often during my beach week I remembered to photograph the food, but sometimes I forgot and sometimes it was too good for me to get up and grab my camera. I took a couple old standbys with me--Heidi's wheatberry salad and otsu. Always good. We ate the otsu in the car after picking Dra up at the Philly airport, and ate the Wheatberry Salad right after arriving at the beach and settling onto the back deck. But, everyone there was a talented cook, and a couple of them are honest-to-god chefs, so believe me when I say we ate like queens.

I held strong with sticking to my vegetarian ways and didn't eat any seafood even though it looked and smelled dreamy. Seafood was always my favorite. I considered just making an exception for that week, but then I opted not to go the route that would ensure guilty feelings. So, no fish for me, but I'm including a couple pictures with seafood because it looked so good.

What I made: otsu, wheatberry salad, mesquite chocolate chip cookies, lemon soup, zucchini-feta-herb salad, crepes w/ lemons and sugar and/or berry-rhubarb compote, veggies burgers (based on the sprouted garbanzo burgers and a bunch of extra stuff throw in), fresh rolls, Heidi's Yucatan street corn, marinated tofu filets, and, um, that's all I can remember.

wheatberry salad on fresh greens (based on Heidi's recipe from Super Natural Cooking):

lemon soup (Molly Katzen's recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest):

corn and fixin's (crema w/ lime zest, queso blanco and limes dipped in chipotle chili powder):


fresh rolls with spicy peanut sauce and mango relish:

crepes with lemons and sugar and cherry-strawberry-rhubarb compote:

marinated and grilled tofu filets with grilled veggies:

veggie burgers with nowlzie's remoulade sauce and the best gaucamole in the world:


And, here's a sampling of food my friends made:
Dra's famous Caesar Salad with Dina's famous croutons:

Dra's famous "fancy boli" that we like to call "The Dra" (half with procuitto, half without):

Dina's potato cake:

Schwatts's clam extravanza:

Schwattzie-Bear's lobbie madness:

Also, some highlights not pictured: Doggie's effing amazing raw dairy whole grain waffles with raw cottage cheese, fresh strawberries and maple syrup; Dina's famous lobster bisque; Schwatts's famous bacon-wrapped scallops; Schwatts's awesome potato chowder (and seafood chowder variation); Dina's chicken salad and faux-chicken salad; hardshell crabs; Dina's bananas foster bread pudding. I know there was more, but that's all I can think of right now. If you would like any of the recipes, lemme know and I'll hunt them down and post 'em up. But, suffice it to say, we had a fabulous week--and not just the food. These are some of my favorite peeps on earth. And, look how happy they are!
Scwatts:

Doggie:

Dra:

Nowlzie:

Dina:

Me:


p.s. Doggie gave me starters for both kombucha and kefir. Stay tuned for more about this!