Home Made Ricotta

Today's Seattle Times magazine has a wonderful article on making ricotta at home. It includes a recipe. This is one I will definitely try.

The Splendid Table also has a recipe for ricotta.

"Pork" with Red Peppers

In the late 1960's the Time/Life company had a "Foods of the World" cookbook series. My family had just returned from a year and a half in Europe, and we came back to a pretty dismal food scene. Even though I was only in high school, I subscribed to the series and taught myself to cook from it. These cookbooks, which I still have, are now widely and cheaply available in used book stores and thrift shops and each and every one of them has at least a few recipes I make over and over again. Hard to believe I've been making some of these recipes for forty years!

My mother was a fairly adventurous cook and used to make a fabulous Portuguese pork dish (Lombo de Porco com Pimentos) from the The Cooking of Spain and Portugal book. I suspect part of the fabulousness was the quarter cup of lard the original called for. My vegetarian version substitutes butter -- and less of it -- and I think it's still good.

Ingredients:

6 oz faux chicken strips, thawed and cut into uniform pieces
2 generous tablespoons butter
4 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 large red bell pepper, seeded, deribbed and sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine or white vermouth
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 lemon wedges

Method:

In a nonstick pan, melt a scant tablespoon butter and saute the strips until they are lightly browned. Remove and reserve.

Remove any bits of the strips sticking to the pan and melt the rest of the butter. Add the minced garlic and cook until it is just beginning to brown lightly. Add the red pepper slices and saute for a couple of minutes until they soften slightly. Add the wine, stock, and salt. Simmer over very low heat for about half an hour (adding more stock if necessary) until the pepper is very thoroughly cooked and the liquid has a sauce-like consistency. Add the reserved strips, stir to combine and cook until they are just heated through.

Serve over rice, garnished with the lemon wedge. Serves two. Recipe can easily be doubled, tripled or quadrupled.

Vios Cafe - Seattle

Met a dear friend at Vios Cafe for lunch today. Vios serves wonderful, home-style Greek food -- not the greasy stuff you sometimes find. Vios is very family-friendly, with a place for kids to play. Large tables may seat more than one party. Place your order at the counter, pick up utensils, find a place to sit and the incredibly friendly and skillful server will bring your order to the table. The vibe is very laid back and the food is extremely fresh and tasty. There is a small market section, and food is available by the pound to go.

Our friend Mary had a mezze salad plate (third picture)which I think was not on the menu but looked great, Mr. Gastronome and I split two orders, a grilled eggplant sandwich with Haloumi cheese and sweet onion relish, and an appetizer trio sampler with hommus, tzatziki and babaganouze (their spellings) pita, olives, onions and cucumber (pix one and two). This evening Mr. Gastronome admitted that he could happily have eaten all of both our orders. It's that good. We'll be back often.

NY Times: Bibimbap, Mexican Chocolate Pudding,

Today's NY Times Dining section has a recipe for Bibimbap, a traditional vegetable casserole on top of crispy rice. I'm not familiar with this dish, or Korean food in general, but it sounds quite good. I like one dish meals.

If this were anybody but Mark Bittman, I wouldn't trust it, but he has a recipe for vegan Mexican chocolate pudding, made with tofu. It looks very easy to make and I can't wait to try it. There's also a video of Bittman making the pudding. The recipe calls for a teaspoon of vanilla; in the video he says a quarter teaspoon. I think I'd be inclined to go with the latter, at least for starters.

Finally, there's an interesting article on the ubiquitous Sriracha hot sauce. It's made in Los Angeles. Who knew? The article includes a recipe for Sriracha Mayonnaise Sauce, although you probably don't really need a recipe. It's just mayo, sriracha, condensed milk and salt. I'm not so sure about the condensed milk...

The Price of Beans . . .

I used to feel pretty smug when I'd find canned refried beans on sale for a dollar a can, one pound. That was before the recession hit and I discovered bulk pinto beans for 74 cents a pound, 50 cents on sale. I knew there would be a big savings cooking dry beans from scratch, but until today I didn't have access to a food scale to do the math.

Right before we left Tucson, I bought a large bag of bulk beans -- six pounds -- at 50 cents a pound. I should have bought twice that, or more. Today I made up a batch of frijoles de olla, using exactly a pound of dried beans. They cooked up to just shy of three and a quarter pounds, which comes out to 16 cents a pound, and they taste much better than the canned beans.

I was curious to see whether "water" is the largest ingredient in canned beans. It is and it isn't. To avoid listing "water" as the first ingredient, they describe the main ingredient as "cooked beans." And what do you suppose those beans are cooked IN?

Dining - NY Times - May 13 2009

In today's New York Time's Dining section, Mark Bittman has a wonderful sounding recipe for Asparagus with Morels and Tarragon.

Melissa Clark has an intriguing recipe for spicy calamari with tomato, caperberries and pine nuts, (with Israeli couscous, which I love) that could probably be done in a vegetarian version, although I'd be inclined to use the original Mario Batali recipe from Babbo. The Batali recipe doesn't include the recipe for his "Basic Tomato Sauce" but I happen to have it in his Molto Mario cookbook which does include it. It really is basic tomato sauce: an onion and four cloves of garlic sauteed in olive oil, fresh thyme, and half a carrot, and two 28 ounce cans of tomatoes. I think if I didn't have Italian canned tomatoes, I'd probably also add a bit of tomato paste.

Also Italian is Elaine Louie's (The Temporary Vegetarian) recipe for crespelle, the Italian version of crepes. I'll bet they're great, but I'll only be serving them for a special occasion. Can anyone say fat bomb? Ingredients for five servings include a pound of cheese, 4 eggs, a quarter pound of butter, most of a cup of heavy cream, and a quarter cup of pine nuts.

A feature article on competitive cooking in Brooklyn mentioned two winners: Ethiopian Empanadas and a vegetarian chili made with tempeh, but included no recipies. Nor did my cursory googling result in a recipe for either.

Finally, there's was an article on the resurgence of absinthe, but at $50 to $111 a bottle, it's not something I'll be trying anytime soon.