Handling my Hot-Plate? Africa Post

Hey guys! I'm in Africa! I don't have any oven to love, nor do I have a microwave, stovetop, or a refrigerator that doesn't gross me out. But I do have a hot plate! I cooked pasta fagioli on it, which I probably already posted somewhere in this blog, but this time it's Africa pasta fagioli. So there.


First, assemble your ingredients. Then you can entertain yourself while the hotplate take 8 years to boil your water for the pasta.



While you're waiting, you can chop your onions and fry them. Luckily, that will take 8 years too, on the hot plate, so you can finish the pasta and onions a the same time.




When one of those things is done, you can heat up the vegetable broth and pasta sauce, and add the beans and eventually the onions.



Add the pasta and you're done! Delicious and pretty easy!

Strawberry Almond Roulade and Little Bee

I made a strawberry roulade from a squishy pink baking book that Bridget brought home from work! It is all gone already, that is how delicious it is (was). Make it and see for yourself!

The Prep: Heat your oven to 425 degrees. Take a jelly roll pan (or something 14x10 inches (ish) and line it with parchment paper. This is going in the oven, so don't cheat and use wax. Go out and buy some parchment. It's August and I had to bicycle to the store to get some, so I don't wanna hear you complaining.

The first step is making the spongy cake part. Start with a pot with some water in it. Put that on the stove and heat it up while you find a nice heat-proof bowl to put on top of the pot, so the bottom of the bowl is in the pot but not touching the water. Now put 3 eggs and 2/3 of a cup of sugar into the heat-proof bowl and whisk them until everything is warm and thick and mixed. Don't cook the eggs though.



Action shot!

Take that off the heat and get another bowl with a little bit less than 1 cup of flour. Be sure and sift this pretty well, because you will be folding the eggy sugar mixture into this and you want as few lumps as possible. Okay, now you can fold the eggy sugar mixture into the flour. Add 1 tbsp of hot water to the mix as well.



Pour the mixture into the pan and pop it in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until golden and springy.



Meanwhile, you can make the filling by mixing 3/4 of a cup of mascarpone cheese with 1 tsp almond extract. I added some sliced strawberries as well, and then sliced some more strawberries in another bowl to put on top of the filling. I really love strawberries.



When the cake is done, turn it out on a fresh piece of parchment paper and peel the old, oven-y parchment paper off.



Roll the cake up in a spiral, with the fresh paper to keep it from sticking. Wrap it in a dishtowel and wait for it to cool. Meanwhile, let the filling get cool in the fridge.



Wait a couple hours and pull everything out to assemble. Unroll the cake bit and spread the filling on it. Drop some sliced strawberries on the filling and roll it all back up. For extra decoration, add slivered almonds on top.







Yum!

Last night I finished Little Bee, a novel by Chris Cleave. It is about a young woman from Nigeria and a less-young woman from England. It's about a lot of other things too, but it is a story that I was told not to spoil by explaining. Suffice to say that it was beautiful and heartbreaking and please enjoy this, one of my favorite passages from it: "We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived"

Casada - a Costa Rican Union of Fried Plantains, Volcano Rice, and Kidney Beans + Scott Pilgram

Casada was basically all I ate (read: could eat) for a week in Costa Rica with my roommate and her family and it is still in the top three of my list of Foods I Would Choose If Some Omnipotent Figure Forced Me To Only Eat One Thing For The Rest of My Life. So, um... yeah. It's good.

In some ways, you are forced to start this dinner an indeterminately long time in advance. Since we do not live in Costa Rica (well, I don't, maybe you do, in which case this recipe is pretty unnecessary to you), we do not have nice fresh plantains to pick off our trees. You can use bananas but I promise it won't be as good. Instead we get them picked when they are green and shipped here to ripen in their own good time, which can be anywhere from 1 week to 6 weeks. Seriously. I buy like 6 and keep them in a brown bag in the pantry and check on them periodically and then cook them when they look something like this, as the more yellow and brown they are, the sweeter and softer and less like a potato they taste.



So, basically, they rule my cooking schedule. These took 4 weeks to get this way, but the other 2 I bought them with were ready in one week. Ridiculous.

Anyway, now that you understand the mysterious nature of the plantain, I need to tell you that they are ridiculously delicious, even if you don't like bananas much, because they take everything bad about bananas and make it good (less intense smell, less slimy and gooey, you don't feel the banana fumes in your mouth when you eat plantains).

Okay, now how to cook them.

Actually you should start the rice first, especially if you have a rice cooker to keep it warm (have I convinced you you need one yet?) I used Volcano Rice that I bought at the Green Festival in SF. It is organic and delicious and can be bought here (http://www.lotusfoods.com). Really, all their rice is delicious, but I'm sure the rice you have in your pantry is very nice too. I didn't take a picture of it for some reason, but there's one at the end, so you'll just have to wait.

So now we can start the plantains. First, get a nice layer of oil in the bottom of a skillet and heat it up. While it's heating, slice your plantains up.



The oil took awhile so I made some iced tea too. Teavana's Jasmine Dragon Peals and Roobios Tropica are really good together. These companies should really be paying me for all this fabulous publicity.



So your oil is heated now and you can tell because you put your fingers under the faucet and flicked a few drops of water into the pan and it danced. So now you can place as many plantains as fit in the pan and let them cook (on medium heat, or low if necessary, you don't want it to get too hot or the pan will spit hot oil in your face). Let them cook for like 5 - 10 minutes, and check on them periodically. The bottom side should look like these guys in the back left:



When they look sorta like that you can flip them all over and cook the other side. Meanwhile, you can open a can or two of kidney beans and heat them up. (Or, if you are judging my use of canned beans, feel free to go back in time and make your own dried beans. I'm not that intense, sorry.)



Yum.

This dish is called casada because everything is mixed together. Like being married. So I hope you didn't divide each thing into a separate part of the plate, cause its supposed to look all good and mixed up, like this



I've recently begun reading the 6- volume Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley and enjoying them thoroughly. The humor is perfectly tailored to my weird tastes and the drawing is pretty fabulous too. Plus there is an impending movie with the inappropriately-cast Michael Cera, which otherwise looks pretty exciting. So check them out!

Lentils, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, and Red Quinoa

This is the epitome of Healthy Vegetarian Dinner, but it is also really tasty and makes your body feel nice after you eat it, so we have it kinda frequently. My friend Anastasia, however, does not have it ever, so when she heard what I was making for her visit, she was a little hesitant. But after helping me make it and a little wine, she was very excited and even put the meal on her tumbler (http://whatsonyourplate.tumblr.com/), so hooray!

I started with the red quinoa, which I buy at Trader Joes. We have a rice cooker, so it can just chill (or warm, I guess) in there until the rest of the meal is done and it won't get cold or dry or anything. 2 cups water to 1 cup quinoa :)



I looks like I also added some herb, but I'm not sure what it is... sage maybe? Try it out, lemme know if it tastes nice.

Next, I started the Brussels sprouts. I preheated the oven to 400 and preped the sprouts by cutting off the icky end bit, slicing them in half, and then rolling them around in a bowl with some olive oil.



Then I sautéed them with plenty of brown sugar and more oil so they could get soft and sweet.



While they sautéed (for about 5 minutes), I cooked the lentils. First I cooked 1/2 an onion and 2 carrots (both chopped) in a pot with some oil for about 5 minutes. Then I added a couple cloves of minced garlic and cooked another minute. Then I added 1/2 of white wine, 2 cups of vegetable broth and 1 cup of the lentils, plus a bay leaf. The mixture simmered away and I left it partially covered for about 25-30 minutes, stirring whenever I needed something to do in order to look like a Busy and Important Chef.



By now, I had put the Brussels sprouts on a baking tray and had moved them into the oven (I did that while the onion and carrot were cooking, keep up).



They were meant to stay in there for 30 minutes and I was distracted by Anastasia's charming company and so didn't check on them enough - they were darker than I like when I took them out, but still sweet and good. So check on them. Speaking of which, you should probably check those lentils right about now, they might be soupy. You don't want that. Anyway, make sure you flip the Brussels sprouts and know that 30 minutes is a random estimate. Just take them out of the oven when they look a little toasty and brown and like something you would want to eat.



This is why my Brussels sprouts burned.



Finished product!



And, look, the quinoa is done too!

So I know I talked about reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond last time, but that was a whole two months ago and due to work and busy-ness and all the reasons I have for blogging about something I ate 6 weeks ago, I haven't finished the book yet. Another reason is that reading it is like taking a full college course in the history of all civilization. So I am going to recommend it again, this time based only on the sheer volume of interesting and relevant things I learned - things that, in fact, I frequently had to stop reading for a few minutes and take in and review in my mind, so I would remember and understand it all fully and use it to understand and explain societal phenomenon in my daily life. Seriously, read the thing.

Pasta Primavera and Garlic Bread and Guns, Germs, and Steel

A lot of the things I cook take awhile, but this dish is healthy and quick and tasty, for the sevantless American cook. Like the trifle, it is particularly nice for farmer's market groceries, which are fresh and spring-y. I used an onion, carrots, broccoli, snap peas, bell peppers, zucchini and mushrooms. I also made garlic bread from scratch, which is less quick and easy, but you could buy a baguette and that is good too.

I started the garlic bread first, mixing 3 1/2 cups of bread flour with 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon salt, 2 tablespoons shortening, and 4 1/2 teaspoons yeast. Add 2 1/4 cups very warm water and stir with a spatula. Continue adding the flour and stirring, 1 cup at a time, until the dough is easy to handle (up to 6 or 7 cups total). Spill it out of the bowl and knead it for about ten minutes until it is springy and nice.

Wash the bowl and put the dough back in. Cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit for the length of one Dr. Who episode on instant Netflix (45 - 55 minutes). Grease two bread pans (I like using shortening and then a bit of flour) and punch the inflated dough. Tear it into two pieces, each of which you should roll into a 18" by 9" rectangle. I spread a few cloves of crushed garlic over the rectangle so it nice and flavorful. Roll the rectangle up and pinch it periodically so the air gets out and place it in one of the bread pans.



Let warm for the length of another Dr Who episode and then place the pans in an oven preheated to 425 and let cook for 25-30 minutes.

After I put the bread in to bake, I started the pasta boiling. We had some fun shapes and colors which definitely made everything prettier and more tasty. I cooked about 2 pounds to feed our house of 6 with some left over.



After about 12 minutes, I drained it and left the colander in the sink, covered with a large pot lid to keep most of the heat in.

As the pasta cooked, I chopped up all the veggies and started the broccoli, onion, and snap peas sautéing with a couple tablespoons of oil. I was pretty generous with the oil because I didn't use any other sauce on the pasta. Robbie had steamed some carrots the night before and I used the leftovers so they were already soft, but if yours are not, you should put them in with this first round of veggies. They sautéed for about 7 minutes.



Then I added the bell peppers, mushrooms, steamed carrots and zucchini with a bit more oil and let them sauté a few minutes more.



Finally, I melted about 1/4 cup of butter and mixed it with 3 cloves of crushed garlic for an extra garlic-y taste sensation. I sliced some of the freshly-baked bread (I have a bad habit of not letting it cool, it's too tempting) and laid out the buffet spread for my hungry roommates.



Gun, Germs, and Steel is a book by Jared Diamond about why European people were able to conquer and exterminate and enslave so many non-European people. The short answer is that they had guns, germs, and steel, but the longer answer explores why they had those things and many of the non-European people did not. It is fascinating and readable and extended over lots of interesting disciplines, sometimes discussing how wheat and bananas evolved and other times discussing how good hunters coming from Africa killed off all the large mammals on not-Africa. It's excellent and I, of course, recommend it highly, even for people (me) who aren't crazy about non-fiction. So check it out!

Fun Dessert Times! Featuring: Trifle!

A couple weeks ago, I embarked on a delicious culinary adventure - Trifle! If you do not know what that is, it is a layered dessert with whipped cream, custard, some sort of cake or cookie thing, and various fruit. It even has a special bowl that I bought from Target to display all the delicious layers. This was inspired by my mom, who made a trifle because she "had some leftover egg yolks". Other people make omelets, we apparently make trifle.

So I'll start with the difficult part - making your own custard (you can also totally buy this at the store, but that doesn't require reading a cooking blog either). This recipe is stolen from a book called BakeWise by Shirley O. Corriher. If you interested in the science behind baking, you might want to read it. Personally, I like the idea of learning the science behind baking better than actually learning it. Anyway, custard.

You start with a vanilla bean, which is one of the coolest things in a spice cabinet. You awkwardly pry it open to reveal the pretty black stuff inside, which you scrape into a saucepan. It's very satisfying.



Then you drop the rest of the bean in there (to be fished out later) and 1 cup of whole milk and 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream. Heat these over medium heat until it just begins to steam.



While that's happening, stir 1/3 cup of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 3 tablespoons cornstarch in aother saucepan. Also, get a bowl and mix 5 large egg yolks together in it. (The whites make a nice healthy omelet for later). Put that bowl aside.




Return to the first saucepand and take out the vanilla bean (which can probably be used again, if you want to save it). Drizzle the hot liquid into the second saucepan, which whisking. Return the saucepan, which now has all the delicious things in it, to the heat. Stir it constantly until the mixture thickens.




Once that's happened, scoop about 1/4 cup of the hot mixture and mix it in the with egg yolks, then put it all back in the saucepan. Return everything to the heat once more and bring it to a boil. Stir constantly and let it boil for a couple minutes (apparently, says Shirley, this kills the enzymes in the egg that make the custard thin later).

When it is thick and smooth and all the enzymes are dead, transfer it to a bowl, cover the surface of it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate. This is also the time to add any extra flavors if you want to. Let it cool for a couple hours and then come back and do the rest of your trifle



...


Now the super-easy-fun-part!

Take the rest of your carton of whipping cream (or a new carton of whipping cream, if you want lots, like me) and pour it into a nice, big bowl. Add some powdered sugar, to taste (I did 3 tablespoons). Turn on your electric mixer (or get a friend with a whisk and lots of endurance) and mix the cream until it forms peaks in the bowl that can stay up but are still delicate.



Take your cake/cookie/bread and cut it up into cubes. Traditional things for this layer are ladyfinger cookies or angel food cake or pound cake. I used Greenlee's Cinnamon Bread, which is some delicious bread from a nice bakery in San Jose. I also toasted it to make sure it didn't get soggy, which worked very well (I don't know if it would have gotten soggy anyway, but I really hate that so it was good to be sure).



Finally, cut up your fruit. I used strawberries and raspberries, but you can really use anything. Mine were farmer's market delicious, which is a benefit of spring-time trifle.



Such bright and delicious friends! Soon we will grow some in our garden and eat them too!



Now, you assemble it layer by layer in a trifle bowl or some other, less awesome bowl. I don't know if there is some special patterns for the layers, but I just did them randomly and it was fine, especially because I had disproportionate amounts of each thing.



Tada! This was crazy good, you should definitely try to make some!

Yummy Ratatouille

I made ratatouille for the first time last Wednesday! It was pretty good, but a little too liquidy, so you will want to check the pot pretty frequently (I did not do this).

First step is to chop up lots of things - an onion, 3 garlic cloves, an eggplant, 2 zucchini, a yellow squash, 2 bell peppers, and 4 tomatos



Yummy cut things!



Put 1/4 cup of olive oil in a big pot and put all the veggies in (except the tomatoes) with a couple bay leaves and some thyme and salt and pepper.

Leave them in there, covered, over a medium heat, for 15-20 minutes.



Meanwhile, add some chopped parsley to your chopped tomatoes. Pretty!



Now that the other veggies have softened, add the tomatoes and parsley to the pot and cover for another 15-20 minutes. Be sure to watch it and uncover it when everything is soften enough, but not falling apart. While you're waiting, stick a baguette in the oven to make it nice and crusty.

Dinner!



It is finals time, which means that, if you are an English major, you are all done reading the assigned books for the semester and you can enjoy reading stuff for yourself. What I want to read most is Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I read it once last year and it was Most Excellent. If you enjoy alternative reality period novels that include magic, silly and cranky and pedantic English people, and novels that have fun and informative (lying) footnotes, then you should read this novel too. I happen to like all if these things, and I love, love, love stories that have parts set in Faerie. So this is what I'm reading now.

Enjoy with your tummy and with your brain :D