Patty Pan Squash

I joined the local food coop, Karma Coop early last month. It is no behemoth like the last one I belonged to, but it certainly gets the job done.

Anyway, I saw these patty pan squashes at the coop, and I thought to myself, what the hell do you do with these?

They looked so darned cute, so I had to try them. Chocolate and Zucchini happened to run a recipe that looked interesting, so I tested it out this weekend.

Instead of breaking out the mini-chopper, I just coarsely chopped the herbs, thrashed it all around with the rest of the dressing ingredients.

Originally I wasn’t going to blog about this recipe, but the first forkful I put into my mouth was so delicious, I just had to post about it. The whole recipe is really outstanding and simple to make. Get those patty pans while they’re still in season!

 

Butter, butter, butter II

The New York State Fair’s butter sculpture!

 

Butter, butter, butter

I heart the Iowa State Fair

 

Progress on the Experiment

After a few days in the glass of water, my mint started to shoot!

Close-up!

I planted the cuttings and am now hoping for the whole thing to root or whatever it’s supposed to do. The whole thing not dying would be good.

 

Experiment #1

I’m no green thumb. I was never the kid with the grow-op, always forgot to water my mom’s plants while she was away, and a bit disassociated with nature having grown up in the city. I want to be a good foodie/advocate/conscious eater, but I have this huge blindspot. I’m not all that comfortable with nature, the outdoors, or gardening. My mother is a prodigious gardener, and I’ve inherited none of it. She grows her own Chinese vegetables ever since I can remember, and I’ve barely ever even owned a plant. I hope that I possess some kind of nurturing capacities, but for plants so far I’ve shown none.

This is my first experiment with gardening. The earlier post about mint chutney reminded me that mint is really easy to grow. Apparently you can just look at mint, and it’ll grow a lot for you.

Anyway, I’m currently hoping the the sprigs that are on my windowsill will sprout, and I’ll have more to write about. For now, let’s just hope the darn thing sprouts.

 

Fish Fry Fail

I’ve been buying fish lately at Fiesta Farms. Tilapia and snapper have fared well. This week, I got a big filet of cod because it was on sale. I thought to myself, cod will taste delicious, and if there’s a book on the history of cod (on my shelf, never read) and that old Canadian heritage commercial about the colonization of Canada because of all the cod, well then, it must be tasty and easy to prepare.

Nope, no dice. The first night, I pan fried the cod and added a squeeze of lemon. Ok, but nothing to write home about.

The 2nd night, I thought I’d do a kind of fish fry. A handful of flour, some cumin, tumeric, cayenne, salt and pepper, coated the fish and fried it up. Again, ok but nothing special.

Before the night of the fish fry, I looked up some recipes for inspiration, but most recipes call for salt cod. I think maybe the moral of this story is that I should wait to find a super delicious recipe (ask my mom), or leave the bacalhau to the professionals. Or keep experimenting until it goes off sale at Fiesta Farms.

 

Kale Chips

Most weeknights, I throw together a quick and simple meal for myself. A great thing to have under the tool belt is a quick, easy, nutritious snack/side dish like kale chips. The kale chip comes from my friend L, so I cannot take any credit for it, except that I make everyone I know eat it.

These are incredibly easy to put together. Preheat oven to 350F. Get a bunch of kale, chop off the end bits and discard. Then chop up into pieces no bigger than 1 inch/3 cms. Put into a mixing bowl, and toss with olive oil, salt, freshly ground pepper. Feel free to add in your own spices.

Spread on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until everything looks crispy.

Take out of the oven, and careful not to burn yourself while munching on them. They’re fun to eat!

 

Movies with Food (Departures)

I saw Departures last month and I really enjoyed it. For those of you not familiar with the movie, it is a Japanese film that won the Foreign Film Oscar this year. It’s about a young man who is laid off from his job at the symphony. He returns to his hometown only to find a job casketing and performing funeral rites for the deceased.

Although there are many scenes that I enjoyed, the one scene that stays with me is the one where the funeral director (Shoei)*, the office manager (Yuriko) and the main character (Daigo) eat fried chicken together on Christmas Eve. The scene made me hungry for a drumstick of fried chicken, but it was also a visceral way of showing how alive these characters are. I especially loved their refrain “It’s so good, I hate myself.” The mark of well prepared food, and living life to the fullest. I loved how this quick scene illustrates the little pleasures of life, good food, good company, and celebration of life.

* The actor that plays Shoei is none other than Goro from Tampopo, another classic food movie.

 

Mint Chutney

My friend R was moving out of her place last week, and I helped her move into her new place. Before she vacated the premises, we grabbed as much mint as possible from the garden she was leaving. By the way, apparently, you’re supposed to plant mint in a pot, otherwise it will take over your entire garden. I filled a bag full of mint and there was still plenty left growing in the garden.

I had dreams of making some mint juleps, but there was a lot of mint, and I haven’t found a proper julep cup yet.

Instead, I went back to the chutney recipe from last month.

I did one thing a bit differently, I let my tamarind soak longer.

Last time, I only let my tamarind soak for about 15 minutes and it was hard to seed. This time around I let the tamarind soak for 24 hours. Other sites say that you can soak for a minimum of 2 hours and it will be easier to handle.

Same basic premise, ginger, garlic, red onion, chilies, lemon juice, tamarind, mint, salt, pepper:

Blend everything well:

Easy peasy, the whole process took about 15 minutes plus 24 hours for tamarind soaking.

I had never seen mint flowers before, and assume that they’re edible. Has anyone tried cooking with them? Or are they purely ornamental?

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’m not much of a cookie baker. I usually make cakes and pies, but I love chocolate chip cookies. Every so often, the New York Times runs a story about the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe. I was intrigued by Chocolate and Zucchini’s interpretation of a recipe that Jacques Torres had in the NYT a while back. I share Clotilde’s belief that chocolate chip cookies should not be the size of your face, but a more manageable size.

This recipe calls for chocolate disks or feves. I have never baked with them before so I searched around for a place that sells them. I found the most fantastic place in St. Lawrence Market called Domino’s which sells lots of yummy stuff in bulk. I grabbed some dark chocolate feves and some plantain chips and went on my way.

I doubled the recipe because I’m going to give away most of the cookies I make. The dough is pretty standard and easy to put together. I did hit a snag though and realized that I had accidentally used half the butter that I should have. I quickly added more butter and threw the dough in the fridge.

46 hours later, I baked all of the dough. I think the cookies look quite stunning:

Straight, warm out of the oven, they tasted good. I think i misjudged the salt, and didn’t use quite enough. I’m going to reserve full judgment until tomorrow. Clotilde says she thinks the cookies taste better the next day!

ETA (Aug 4): The cookies the day after are FANTASTIC! I brought them with me to a friend’s cottage for the long weekend, and they were more lovely the days after. The cookies stay light, soft and moist. I can’t wait to make them again.