Happy Holidays!

Summary of my holidays through food:



I wanted to have good bakery bread for the Christmas weekend so my hubby and I went to the San Diego Artisan Bread Bakery in Escondido and they were closed on Saturday (Christmas Eve)! Their loss. I would've bought a LOT of bread. So on the way home I remembered that there was a Panera Bread near our house and I knew they had pretty decent bread so we stopped by hoping they would have some bread left.

When we got there the shelves were sadly bare with only a loaf here and there. Thank goodness I saw some candy-cane shaped baguettes in the oven and asked if I could buy any of those. Fortunately they had a few left over from a special order and I took two candy-cane loaves home. As you'll notice from the picture on the left one of them actually looks more like a "7".

We also picked up a rosemary and onion foccacia as well as a bag of sourdough rolls. The baguettes made fantastic bruschetta (I could probably live on different kinds of bruschetta) and the foccacia was delicious with asiago and roasted veggies. Since we only had ground beef in our freezer on Monday we decided to make mini-burgers with the sourdough rolls. A little asiago, homemade aioli, tequila mustard and roasted veggies made the burgers perfect. Oh, and you can't have gourmet burgers without Arrogant Bastard (our favorite beer from Stone Brewery).

This year I was going to spend the entire week before Christmas making cookies. Unfortunately I've been a bit ill so I've been down and out most of the holidays. My husband had received an invite to a coworkers house on Christmas so I decided to stay up all night on Christmas Eve to make cookies to take to their house. Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies magazine inspired me to make seven kinds this year. Sadly, Martha disappointed me. Her molasses chews were no where as good as a recipe I used to use all of the time (which I believe is buried somewhere in a pile of recipes at my mom's house) and her stained glass Christmas tree cookies were lacking in both flavor and longevity. They only last about a day before the insides melt or disintegrate.

My spicy peanut butter kisses turned out nicely. I use half spicy natural peanut butter and half crunchy peanut butter. It's important to use only half natural peanut butter since it's a different consistency than name-brand peanut butter. The spicy peanut butter gives the cookies a kick but it's not actually hot spicy. You'll have to make them yourselves to see what I mean. If you like kickin' it up a notch then you'll love these (I'll post the recipe soon).

Normally I use Hershey's kisses for the tops but my mom had given me a container of milk and dark chocolate "buds" from a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania called Wilbur Chocolates. They have an extra bite to the chocolate that I like. I'm not sure which ingredient makes it better than the average bud/kiss but I think it might be the chocolate liquer listed under the ingredients.

A year or two ago it was a friend's birthday and I wanted to bake him something as a gift. Since I'm not a huge fan of cake I decided to try my hand at rugelach. I have this great cookbook called Manhatten's Dessert Scene that has recipes from bakeries and restaurants all over Manhatten. The recipe for rugelach sounded great and I knew a recipe for rugelach from New York would be trustworthy. The last three times I've made these they turned out a little doughy so this time I made sure to roll the dough out to 1/8 inch to 1/16 thickness. Next time I'll be sure to chop the walnuts finer so that they are easier to roll. This recipe doesn't call for an egg wash but I'm thinking I might try an egg wash or egg wash with a bit of cinnamon sugar when I make these again.

My snickerdoodles turned out okay this year but the weather has been pretty warm (and a bit humid maybe?) so my cookies lost their crispness fairly quickly.

Our stocking stuffers this year were entertaining. My husband and I both got each other a Violet Crumble candy bar. (Great minds think alike!) If you've never had one, run over to Cost Plus and get yourself the best candybar on earth. It's chocolate coated honeycomb. Technically it's not an actual honeycomb but it's perfectly crisp, sweet, and chocolatey. Violet Crumble is the Australian candybar but there's also a Cadbury's version called Crunchie.

My husband got me two funny edible stocking stuffers including a tray of Japanese gummy candies (hotdogs, hamburgers, fries, coke, and pizza) and this scary Japanese business marzipan cat. He knows my absolute favorite candy (besides the Violet Crumble) is marzipan. Every year for Christmas my parents get me a marzipan pig with a penny in its mouth (a German tradition) and this year we weren't able to spend Christmas together so I hinted to my husband that I would love something made of marzipan in my stocking. Unfortunately they were out of marzipan pigs and (somehow) he thought this cat would be better than marzipan fruit. Hmmmm. Am I alone in thinking this cat is kind of scary? It ended up tasting great, though. You know you're jealous. Maybe next year you, too, can get a marzipan business cat.

I hope everyone had a very happy holiday season and Happy New Year!

Mini Cinnamon and Sugar Muffins

A few weeks ago I bought cute mini muffin tins decorated with snowmen and was dying to use them. So I found a recipe in my Martha Stewart Living 2003 Annual Recipes book for Mini Cinnamon and Sugar Muffins. They were extremely simple to make and took maybe a total of fifteen to twenty minutes to make. I was also able to save a lot of the leftover cinnamon and sugar mixture for the snickerdoodles I'm going to make.

At first I was disappointed by the muffins because they looked pretty plain but I was very pleased once I tried one. They're suprisingly moist and flavorful. I didn't have buttermilk which the recipe called for so I just substituted the 1/2 cup of buttermilk with 1/2 cup of lactaid milk (which I use when making baked goods for myself) and 3/4 T. lemon juice. Then I put it in the microwave for a few seconds because I was told that it works better when slightly warmed. Apparently this worked perfectly because the "buttermilk" really made the recipe work.

I have a question for all of you food bloggers out there. I would love to share this recipe with you but I'm not sure about copyright laws. Am I allowed to post a recipe from a book (especially since I pretty much followed the recipe exactly)? If so, is there anything special I should do when posting the recipe?

Thanks!

Homemade Sushi

Last night's appetizer: homemade avocado sushi with wasabi masago. I like to put the wasabi masago all over the top instead of rolling the sides in it because it's that good. You don't need any extra wasabi because the roe are pretty spicy.

I'm still learning how to use a digital camera (sad, isn't it?) so I thought I had also taken a big picture of the whole sushi plate (it was so pretty too) but it turns out I had taken a video of the sushi.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. Since I'm new to food blogging I'm still learning all of the ins-and-outs. Hopefully I'll get the hang of this soon. Anyway, thanks for your support!

Time to try and fix my laptop again so I can stop using my husband's and get that peanut butter cookie recipe off my computer that I really want to make today. I use half spicy and half regular peanut butter. Soooo good.

Asian Specialties

PINEAPPLE BUNS WITHOUT PINEAPPLE

The bakery at the 99 Ranch Market is my favorite place to shop. They always have something new for me to try and I never know quite what's inside of each bao (bun), bread, or pastry. My first grab was a Coffee Pinneapple Bun. I did a quick search and I believe my favorite pinneapple buns are called bor-lor-bao. It turns out that they're called Pineapple Buns because they look like the surface of the pinneapple. The interesting thing is that while the buns might have pinneapple in them, you rarely get one with a pinneapple filling, and even then it's a pinneapple custard that is only faintly reminiscent of pineapple. The sweetbread doesn't actually contain any pineapple. So I wasn't expecting anything except a tasty bun with my favorite egg wash glaze. My husband and I had been shopping for at least 2 hours already and were desperate to
get to our home, 40 minutes away to sample all of our unique Asian delights.

We figured a bun or two from the bakery would be perfect for the ride home without spoiling our appetites. He picked a milk cream bun which was simple and tasty and perfect for a man who loves his custard (Side note: when we first started dating he saw that I had some custard buns in my freezer from the local asian grocery and was thrilled that he found my first pet name. Fortunately he hasn't used it in public yet).

My choice of buns was the only bun left (our selection consisted of maybe a total of five lonesome buns sitting on the bakery shelf) with pinneapple in its name. As soon as I got in the car for our long trip home I tore open the celophane wrapper and got down to business. The first bite was familiar with the crumbly glaze and buttery bread rolling down my tongue. Then I realized I had read the package too quickly. There was a very bitter shock to my tastebuds as I took a second bite. It tasted nothing and yet everything like coffee. Bad coffee. I quickly looked at the wrapping and realized that the "coffee" part of the label really meant that there was coffee in the bun. I truly thought when I bought it that "coffee" was referring to what you should drink with the bun. Kind of like coffee cake. Who would ruin my wonderful pinneapple bun with a nasty coffee paste? Sigh.

At least I knew that we had five grocery bags full of surprises from the Asian market. The long beans would be devoured in three days (only because I have to show restraint now that I'm married and make them last more than ten minutes) as well as the noodles and red bean buns.


DURIAN

Our next adventure consisted of tasting the porcupine-like fruit called a "durian." It comes in a yellow net bag to keep you from stabbing yourself as the entire fruit is covered in short spikes. Its coloring is somewhat similar to a green cantalope and you could actually smell the sweetness wafting from the hard defensive outer layer much like a ripe melon.

When it comes to adventurous eating I generally like to leave that for restaurant dining as I know the chef is probably more familiar with these new ingredients than I am. However, I was feeling daring and the sharp spiky fruit was on sale. Plus, it was quite a coincidence that the night before we were up at 4am watching an Aussie talk all about the Durian on the food network. Interesting fact: it takes 7 years for the Durian tree to produce actual fruit. It will produce the outer spiky shell but there will be no fruit inside. Whenever I find such exotic fruits I fantasize about the person who first discovered it. I wonder who discovered the Durian? He must have been a persistent fellow because this fruit is very difficult to get into.

On the food network show (The Food Hunter) we saw several varieties of Durian and the Aussie seemed pleased to try them all. From what he describe it sounded like the Durian was similar to custard, again something I knew my husband would like. The fruit is soft and creamy inside of its tough exterior. We didn't wait long after dinner to open up this enticing fruit. I could almost guess what it would taste like just from the smell. Sweet and milky. I was correct about it being sweet and milky but it definitely has an extra flavor that I'm not sure I can describe. The texture is similar to that of a ripe mango, with thin threads holding together the soft gooey flesh. While I'm not a huge custard fan, I liked the Durian more than I expected. However, only moments after my husband and I had a few tastes, we both grimaced. Somehow we felt sick. Maybe the fruit was too ripe and was starting to go bad? We'll never know. At least not until we meet a Durian expert or until we've had enough Durian to know for ourselves. I think, in this case, I will
leave it up to the experts to tell me when a Durian is ready to eat.

The Durian originates in South Asia and is harvested not only to eat the fruit right out of its shell but also to make a paste that is sold on the grocery market shelves. The fruit can also be made into Durian cakes which are extremely popular in Malaysia. I found a recipe online and am tempted to make it before the Durian goes bad--but I'm afraid it may be too late.

THE PRESERVED EGG CAKE

You might have already realized from my "coffee pinneapple bun" debacle that I can be slightly ditzy. I attribute this to my ADD and passion for food. Sometimes that passion can be blinding and I jump past "reading" and start tasting before the food has even touched my lips. While I'm not as creative as I was as a child, with food, my imagination still runs wild.

Which leads me to my next anecdote from that day. The Preserved Egg Cake. Why it's called a cake, I'll never know. There really isn't anything cake-like about it. In the small plastic container you see three egg-shaped pastries staring at you. They look tasty. The cake is made out of a flaky pastry dough, similar to pie crust, and is brushed with an egg glaze and decorated with a pinch of sesame seeds. Similar and trustworthy. From the outside. The inside is another story.

Let me start with the reason why I bought these to begin with. We were in a hurry to leave
because we wanted to have mussels that night and couldn't wait to fill up a bag of live mussels and rush them home to their death (who wouldn't want to die in a bath of butter, olive oil, white wine, leeks, garlic and thyme?). There wasn't much of a selection in the bakery, as I mentioned earlier, and I was up to trying something new. While I was pretty sure I had never had a preserved egg cake before, I thought it sounded fine. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Apparently the word PRESERVED didn't register in my hungry hungry brain. NOTE: Never shop hungry.

We didn't have any dessert in the house so I decided an egg "cake" would be perfect after dinner. Remember, the word preserved has still not quite registered in my mind. I put the cake in the toaster oven since a lot of times bakery goods taste better heated up or a bit toasted. I was excited to eat my egg cake because I knew one thing for sure: one of the ingredients was lotus seed paste. I love lotus seed buns. I'm pretty sure that lotus seed paste is the main ingredient inside those chewy sesame balls that I crave whenever we go out for dim sum. You can also find the paste inside steamed bao. So of course I was going to love this cake. Am I setting this up too much?

I bite into the "cake" and taste the dry flaky pastry dough. Not too bad. The good stuff was yet to come. Biting into the cake further led me to the second layer of paste. This must be the lotus seed paste. But it doesn't taste like lotus seed. At least not how I remembered. As I'm eating the egg cake Matt, my husband, looks at me from the kitchen and says "do you realize that what you're eating is a PRESERVED egg cake." It was then that the word PRESERVED finally registered. "Ohhhhhhh gross," I said with resignation. This was not going to be an enjoyable desert.

Upon further examination I found what must have been the preserved egg. A peanut-sized center that looked somewhat like a hard black mini football. I wasn't about to eat it so I just picked at its gummy texture wondering what the hell I was thinking. How did I not realize what was inside this cake? Just a few moments ago I decided to dig the third egg cake out of the trash (don't worry it was still in its container). My loving husband had reluctantly consumed the second one after I begged him to try it and give me his opinion. While he pretty much hated it, he did finish at least half of it, including the preserved egg!

Anyway, I wanted to remind myself of the strange flavors of the egg cake so that I could properly share my experience with you. I decided not to heat it up since I was only going to take a quick bite. It was then that I realized why the lotus seed paste didn't taste quite right. When the egg cake is NOT heated you peel back the pastry dough to reveal the entire preserved egg; whites and all. So apparently the black gummy football was the preserved yolk and the rest of the white filling was the "white" part of the egg coated with lotus seed paste (for flavor?). The preserved egg pretty much tastes like an old and slightly sweet, probably from the lotus seed paste, hardboiled egg.

The preserved egg is actually a delicacy in the Phillipines. I learned this from my husband who was stationed in the Phillipines for a month or two. He heard from the marine corps doctors that the locals who they treated were so thankful for their medical help that they would give them gifts of preserved eggs, the local delicacy. The eggs are buried underground for some time before they are preserved. Most of the doctors were not brave enough to eat, let alone accept, the generous gift but a few gave it a try. This reminds me of a quote I recently read:

"Beware the term 'local delicacy.' It's usually code for something revolting.”
-Lillian Marsano

That concludes my experience with Asian specialties from the 99 Ranch Market in San Diego. I'll be back soon... without a preserved egg cake in my shopping cart.

Headlines

While I didn't get to make any cookies today like I had planned I did watch "Headlines" on the Tonight Show. My husband got such a kick out of them that he spent the next 30 minutes reading archived headlines off of the Tonight Show website and there was one I had to share with you:


It's just a B Sandwich!

Pickles and Ice Cream

After years of driving my husband, friends, and family crazy with my food obsession I have finally found an outlet for my passion. Food blogging!

It will probably take a while before I figure out how to make my blog look as professional as I would like so please be patient. I'm definitely not technologically inclined. My laptop is mainly used for email, research, and finding recipes online.

Discovering food blogs may be the death of me. I could probably spend hours just reading about the farmgirl's biscotti or the food whore's cranky customers. Lately I've been checking out every food writing book I can find from one of Ruth Reichl's famous memoirs of food and her life to a book called A Meal Observed that appears to be entirely about this one meal in a fancy French restaurant. Now that's passion.

So where do I start? Maybe I should start by letting you know that I am a bit ADD and can jump about from one topic to another with very little warning. Please forgive me if I lose you along the way.

Gourmetish wasn't my first choice in blog names. The first title I thought of that represented me best was Pickles and Ice Cream. Gets your attention, doesn't it? The problem: it sounds like a pregnancy blog.

In reality I looooove pickles and ice cream. I am still the only person I've met who likes pickles and ice cream (fried pickles and ice cream is the best, you used to be able to get them in Richmond, VA at the Galaxy diner) for their pure delicious-ness and not for shock value. My husband is a bit concerned. What am I going to eat when I actually am pregnant?!

To make matters worse: I've found a new variation on pickles and ice cream.

I could say that it happened accidently, much like the onion ring, but I would be lying. A few weeks ago I discovered Breyer's lactose free vanilla ice cream. I'm a bit lactose intolerant and was thrilled to find that it tastes great. It's creamier and softer than regular vanilla ice cream and it doesn't make me [sick] (I'll spare you the details). I was in one of my pseudo-pregnancy moods and was craving the satisfaction of a pickles-and-ice cream flavor combo. On my way to the fridge I passed by a bag of Tim's Wasabi Potato Chips (crunchy, crispy, and oh so good).

Anyway, these chips are so addictive (I don't normally eat junk food) that I immediately started craving them. At first I ate just a spoonful of ice cream and a few chips but eventually realized that I might as well jump right in and put them in the same bowl. In a way it's like chips and dip. Only the dip is made of vanilla ice cream and the chips are anything but ordinary.

If you have pregnancy-like cravings as well (or hey, maybe if you are pregnant) I definitely recommend this combination. Your friends might think you're crazy but you'll get my gourmetish seal of approval. Afterall, you can't deny that it is gourmetish to eat wasabi potato chips and all-natural vanilla ice cream. It would be even more gourmetish if you were to make your own homemade ice cream. I don't recommend making your own wasabi potato chips because there is no way they would be as good as Tim's. (Thanks, Tim).

With that said (that being my riveting comment on wasabi chips and ice cream), I'm off to bed. I actually just got my wisdom teeth out on Friday and haven't been able to enjoy any crunchy goodness all weekend. Hopefully by Christmas my jaw will be ready for anything. My plan as of right now is to spend all week baking cookies so my mouth better get ready for all kinds of Christmas cookies.

You know what I just realized? There is a lot of pressure involved with writing a food blog. If I say I'm going to bake cookies all week--I better bake cookies, huh? You'll probably want proof too, won't you? Oh, you.

Well, goodnight. I'm off to sleep with visions of snickerdoodles dancing in my head.