New Category For Vegan Recipes

Thanks to Ruth of the Perfect Blood Sugar blog for the excellent suggestion to have a category for recipes that are vegan, or easily modifiable to be vegan. I've gone back through the last 50 or so posts and added the vegan ones to that category, and I'll try and do the rest soon. Let me know if there are other categories you'd find useful.

Calabro - The Best Ricotta Cheese in America

Calabro Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese

Like most things in life, there is ricotta and there is ricotta. For long-baked dishes, it might not make that much difference. But take one bite of this Calabro's fresh cheese and you might think you never had ricotta before. It has the same clean milky sweetness that you find in great fresh mozzarella, and a fluffy, light texture.

I like it on toast, or with a drizzle of honey, or with a good piece of fruit. Just saying, gotta give props to these guys for keeping it real for 43 years. In Seattle I can reliably find the ricotta at Whole Foods, not sure what distribution looks like in the rest of the country. I only wish I knew where to find some of their other products.

My Spuddy Valentine

My Spuddy Valentine

Apparently Cafe Flora has a knack for romantic vegetables. Just in time for Valentine's Day, Joey found this russet that is all heart. Sadly, right after the photo op, it ended up as a mashed potato. But as we say in the kitchen, it ain't the heat, it's the cupidity.

Supertaster Test

Maybe you have heard about how a certain percentage of the population are so called supertasters? Supposedly they have a lot more taste buds than the rest of us, and therefore can both appreciate some foods more but also may find other strong tastes unbearable. Anyhow, I remember reading that there was now an over-the-counter test for this trait, but I hadn't gotten around to tracking them down.

Keren to the rescue once again, she brought a bunch of samples from SupertasterTest.com to the blogger brunch. They are just little strips, kind of like pieces of litmus paper. You put 'em in your mouth, chew a little, and notice whether you (1) taste nothing (a non-taster), (2) taste a moderately bitter flavor (normal) or (3) find them unbearably bitter (a super-taster).

Most of us fell in camp (2). Kari Brunson of Anticiplate hit the nail on the head when she described it as tasting like an aspirin on your tongue - unpleasant but eminently bearable. Her husband might have scored a 2.5. He didn't say much but his mug was a picture of displeasure.

I knew that the main event was waiting for me at home though. We've long suspected that Sarina might be a supertaster, because she will sometimes have really intense revulsion at certain smells and foods that seem like no big deal to me at all. And she's pregnant (yep, I just dropped that in casual blog conversation), and as we all know, even normal non-supertaster pregnant women develop very strong senses of smell and taste, likes and dislikes.

I wasn't disappointed! Joel and Sara and Sarina all popped in their strips. Joel and Sara maintained their equanimity, while within seconds Sarina was grabbing the strip out of her mouth, dashing to the kitchen for a glass of water, and making sounds like a cat with hairball. "Why did you give me that horrible thing?!?".

Suspicion confirmed! We'll have to try it again when she's not pregnant, but I expect it will still be positive.

The tests are only $4.95 for 2 strips, so well worth picking up if you are interested. Or slightly cruel.

Video From the Blogger Brunch

Just a quick note - Keren over at Savvy Savorer put up videos of everyone at the last Seattle blogger brunch talking about their dishes. Thanks Keren! While I'm babbling about white beans (did I really say something about Moorish influence?) you can hear my daughter repeatedly asking for water. Bad daddy.

New Year's Feast

At Sarina's suggestion, we decided to make our New Year's party meal into a small plate affair that we could stretch out all night. I made three plates, my brother Joel made three, and his girlfriend Sara made one, for a total of seven courses. In addition to the family, we also had Sarina's dear friend D.M. up from LA. To keep some sort of consistency, we chose (vegetarian) Asian flavors except for the final dessert. I didn't write much down, but I'll walk you through the courses just for fun. Please post links to your feasts in the comments if you took pics!

The first course was the mu shu vegetable above (pancakes and hoisin not pictured), and it was the only one we had before Mini-Me went to bed. I was trying to match the delicious one at Shanghai Garden but I missed the mark a bit. Too much cornstarch in the sauce and not enough cabbage.

Round two was provided by Sara - delicious marinated vegetable and tofu kebabs that she quickly broiled.

Joel then came through we some stellar potstickers (aka Gyoza), filled with a meat substitute called Quorn. You can see the crispy goodness. It took a lot of restraint not to fry off all the extras , but we knew there was a lot more food to come.

Then we fired up the movie of the night, Superbad, which we unanimously thought hilarious. What that says about our level of maturity I don't care to speculate. We made a chart in crayon that clearly indicated we would have to pause the movie multiple times for the additional courses or we wouldn't be ready for dessert at midnight.

Joel than dropped in these Asian pears poached in wine and mulling spices, which he got from, ahem, an Oprah magazine. A nice, sweet palate cleanser before the last two savory courses.

Those next two plates fell to me. When I planned that I didn't really account either for the level of cocktail imbibification that would have occurred by 10:30 nor that the kitchen would be thoroughly trashed. But it was fine, I pushed everything out of the way, took a grounding swill of whiskey sour, and rolled the sushi above. From left to right you have a basic maki with a layer of omelette rolled in next to the nori and a dot of wasabi, a two layer circle with pickled cucumber on the bottom and pickled daikon in the middle, and a take on the traditional ume shiso roll with the shiso leaf acting as the wrapper. (If you haven't had an ume shiso roll, ask at any good sushi restaurant and prepare for a really bracing sour flavor).

By the time we got to my final course I was really making it up as I went along. I knew I wanted to do something with soba and the mushrooms, but I had originally planned to do it cold. And I had originally an ambitious idea of plating it to look like a little forest. Uh, yeah. It still tasted good. I seared the french horn mushroom and the tofu, hit the tofu with a little Korean kochujang chili paste, steamed the choy, and made a quick broth of soy sauce, miso, yuzu and mirin.

And finally we got to Joel's beauteous New York style cheesecake, which we didn't get into until after champagne. He made hundreds of them when he was a pastry chef at a gourmet takeout place, so we knew we were in good hands. I think I'm ready for a piece of the leftovers right now.

So that was the feast! I think we might make the small plate thing a tradition.

The Sounds of A Restaurant Kitchen

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was in the kitchen at Cafe Flora, pureeing the lentils, onions and pecans for our pate platter and feeling vaguely irritated with myself for choosing a messy way of dealing with the several batches that needed to go in the robocoupe (a big food processor). I was tired at the end of a long shift and ready to go home and catch a nap before Mini-Me was up and ready for an afternoon of fairy-fireman-spin-dancing. (You'd have to see it for yourself).

Anyhow, I turned off the robo, and suddenly I heard every sound in the kitchen at once. It was one of those strange moments of hyperawareness. Behind me to the left, in the dish pit, I could hear plates banging, the dishwasher running, and accordions on Spanish language radio. In front of me, the brunch crew was prepping for the weekend and the radio was playing the Decemberists on KEXP. From my right came the whing-whing-whing sound of the big Hobart mixer straining to grate parmesan cheese, while a few feet farther was the low whir of a KitchenAid mixer churning icing. And behind me on the right I could hear the crackle of sauteeing while the line cook called orders to the pizza station and passed plates to the intermittent stream of servers coming in and out.

The funny thing was that rather than making me grumpier, all the noise completely lifted my mood. I could feel the whole rhythm of the kitchen as we went about our various tasks, wrapping up lunch service and preparing to hand off to the dinner crew. I felt my sense of place in the larger organism that is the restaurant and it was comforting.

Isn't it cool when those little spiritual moments sneak up on you from nowhere?

[where: 2901 E. Madison St, Seattle, WA, 98112]

Carrot Love

We caught these romantic carrots in the act at Cafe Flora. I'm heartbroken to report that they were tragically separated and served with Portabella Wellingtons. Kind of a Romeo and Juliet story for the vegetable kingdom. Their love was never to be, but at least they had a last few minutes together on the prep table.

How To Clean a Kitchen - Fast!

As you might have guessed, my home cooking tends to somewhat ambitious meals, even on "school nights", and that sometimes leads to pretty substantial messes. Working at Cafe Flora confirms what I've often thought, I tend to work more like a restaurant cook even though I'm at home. The only tiny little problem with that is that I don't have a professional staff of stewards manning the dish pit to wash everything, sweep the floor and hose down the mats. I can dream!

In the meantime, I've developed a lot of theories over the years about how to clean up as quickly as possible after dinner. I can handle a normal mess by myself in 20 minutes, stem to stern. Here's how I go about it. Please comment and add what works for you, I'd always like to learn more!

1. Have a general plan of attack that you use each time, so you don't have to waste time deciding what to do. For me, I like to:
   
   • put away leftovers
   • get everything off the table and counters, move it towards the sink
   • load the dishwasher
   • wash pots and anything else not going in the dishwasher
   • wipe and dry the table and counters
   • heat up my cast iron skillets and oil them
   • vacuum the floor
   • clean the sink
   • take a last look around for anything I missed
2. Whatever system you use, work top to bottom. Do your table and countertops, then any mess on vertical surfaces, and finally the floor. That way you don't end up cleaning the floor twice, and you don't have to worry if you push some crumbs off while wiping the counters.
3. Save cleaning out the sink for the very last so that if if you rinse out a towel and drop some stuff in there, no effort was wasted.
4. While working within your plan, don't waste any steps. For example if you go to drop a load off at the sink, maybe you can come back with something from the drainboard that you can put away. Likewise, if you are going to get a storage container, stop and notice how many and what size you need so you can grab them all at once.
5. Go ahead and use some towels. Especially if you have a washer and dryer and can do laundry regularly, don't be shy about using 3 or 4 rags or towels to get the job done. Always have a dry one over your shoulder or on your belt or apron string so you don't have to search for it to dry off a knife or a counter. 
6. Bring some intensity to the process. Not that cleaning can't be fun itself, but presumably you have other things you want to get to. So clean it like you mean it! Just be conscious to put a little vigor into each move you make and actively try to pick up the pace. That doesn't mean you have to be running around in a panic, just with some focus and intensity.
7. Use the rinse cycle of your dishwasher. Just shove all the large scraps in the garbage, load everything in there, and press rinse (assuming it isn't time to actually run it). You'll save time and actually use less water than if you rinse each dish by hand.
8. If you are working with a partner, lay out a clear division of labor so that you aren't bumping in to each other or wasting time. When my brother and I clean, he takes the sink area and I do the rest of the kitchen, bringing everything to him so that he can totally focus on loading the dishwasher and washing pots. We frickin' kill it and the place is spotless in no time.
9. Finally, just because you are working with intensity doesn't mean it can't be fun! Put on some high energy music and enjoy the process of trying to do the work both fast and well. Believe me, it sounds like a dance club at work when the customers are gone and we are cleaning up after a full day of serving a few hundred folks. We all want to go home but that doesn't mean we won't have a good time finishing the job.

So what works for you? How do you get your kitchen deeply clean and have time left for Threes Company reruns?

One Day Of Work, Two More Meals, Happy Campers (Including Recipe for Spicy Angel Hair Pasta)

Cornmeal Pancakes From Joy of Cooking

Friday night, put in a good day of work at Cafe Flora. When I got home around 9, Sarina hadn't really eaten dinner and was in the mood for pasta. You know you love to cook when that sounds like good fun! I made her a spicy angel hair pasta with breadcrumbs that comes together in about the time it takes the water to boil (recipe below).

If a friend asks you for an easy and flavorful vegetarian dish, this would be a good one to recommend. You've got the heat of the chili flakes, the pungent garlic, crunch from the breadcrumbs, a little acid from the lemon, and a bit of saltiness. Just don't overcook the pasta.

Then this morning, Mini-Me wanted pancakes, and we decided they should be corn pancakes, from the Joy of Cooking. Picture above. Yep, I like mine a little burned. She ate almost of 5 of them, and she's only 2.5 years old.

Sometimes it just doesn't need to be any more complicated than these simple, delicious things.

By the way, have you checked the expiration date on your baking powder and baking soda recently?  I recently replaced some that was out of date and boy are things rising better now!

Here's the Angel Hair recipe:

Spicy Angel Hair Pasta
(For 1, but easy to multiply)
Vegetarian, and vegan if you omit the parmesan

• 1/4 lb angel hair pasta
• 1 slice country bread
• olive oil
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. chili flakes (or to taste)
• butter
• lemon
• parmesan (reggiano), grated
• sea salt
• pepper
• parsley

1. Start boiling a pot of salted water
2. Toast bread until quite dark, cool a bit, then chop with a knife (or food process or whatever, but I like kinda coarse breadcrumbs for this)
3. When the water boils, heat a big frying pan or skillet over medium flame
4. Drop the pasta
5. Put a good amount olive oil in the skillet, and add the garlic and chili flakes
6. After a minute or two, add the breadcrumbs and stir occasionally
7. When the pasta is al dente (probably 4 minutes for angel hair), drain it well and add right to the skillet
8. Add a good nub of butter, a handful of parm, a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper to taste, and quickly toss a few times with tongs. Taste and adjust, quickly.
9. Serve piping hot in big bowls, garnished with a generous amount of more parm, a few more grains of sea salt, fresh ground pepper, and parsley

Salt Crazy (My Favorite Sea Salts)

It seems as if I have some sort of salt problem. I was thinking of writing about salt, and just raiding my cabinets I found the eleven varieties pictured above. This doesn't actually put me in to the outer realm of salt craziness. I don't carry my own in a little box to restaurants (though I have to admit it doesn't sound like a terrible idea). 

Properly seasoning food with salt is absolutely one of the keys to making it delicious, and as Jeffrey Steingarten points out so clearly in The Man Who Ate Everything, the health media and government are conspiring to deny us that simple pleasure. Well, really what they are trying to do is protect people's hearts, but it turns out that only a small percentage of folks actually have salt-sensitive hypertension and the rest of us could enjoy it pretty liberally. And actually even if you are salt-sensitive, the wonderful finishing salts available now can be a real boon. You can use less sodium mixed in to a dish, and sprinkle a few grains of something great on top and get much of the enjoyment. I've actually taken lately to going a bit easier on the salt in the food so that I can use more at the last moment to get maximum flavor.

Here's a little experiment that you might find interesting. Measure one cup of pure tasting water into a cup. Add one pinch of salt, stir, and taste. Add another pinch, and repeat until it tastes like soup. How many pinches did it take before your water went from refreshing to tasty to oversalted? Remember those flavors and it will make it easier to properly salt while you cook.

Most of the salts above (with exceptions noted below) are finishing salts, which means that they aren't generally meant to be cooked into the food. They are for sprinkling on, either just before serving or at the table. And to be honest, to me most of them taste about the same. There may be subtle variations in degree of saltiness, but what makes them really different is the texture and color. And it isn't just the size of each grain. Many of them have unique and fascinating shapes which are interesting on the palate.

Here are my notes on each of the salts I have in my own kitchen, starting at the top left of the picture:

• Pacific Salt Sea Salt (coarse) - from New Zealand. Very large crystals, much too big to sprinkle directly on food, but perfect in a salt grinder. It would also be beautiful as a bed for presenting food.
• Esprit Du Sel - from the Ile De Re in France, also large but much more irregular, and with a beautiful gray color.
  
• Big Tree Farms Handcrafted Balinese Sea Salt - this is one of the most interesting salts I've run across. Each grain is a little hollow pyramid! A really fascinating texture. The same company also sells Balinese Long Pepper, which was prized by the Romans before the black pepper we use today was well known. It has a terrific floral aroma along with the mild heat.
• Hawaiian Black Sea Salt - super shiny hard black crystals, with the color coming from carbon. This would be great on a flatbread.
• Hawaiian Red Alaea Salt - actually more of an orangey-pink translucent color. This would look awesome on a margarita glass.
• Maldon Sea Salt - regular readers will probably be sick of hearing me carry on about this. If I were stuck on a dessert island, this is the salt I would bring. The texture is thin and flaky, so you get these perfect hits of salty crunch.
  
• Alder Smoked Sea Salt - I picked this up at a slightly odd shop in a small town, and frankly I'm not a big fan. Sounded good, but the smoke flavor just isn't clear, just kind of tastes funky. Maybe I just didn't get a great brand.
• Fleur De Sel de Ile De Re - unlike the Esprit Du Sel, this particular fleur de sel from M. Banaletti is much finer grained. My friend Steve brought it back for me from a trip to France. I particularly like it on salad and grilled vegetables. I don't see that exact salt available on the web, but I've linked a similar one.
• Truffle Salt - I got this at Dean and Deluca in NYC. I normally wouldn't buy such a thing, but it actually delivers a heck of a lot of truffle aroma. For those of us that rarely get the real thing, it is worth having just to occasionally open the jar and take a deep whiff. Good on scrambled eggs. It claims to be 5% black summer truffles but also lists "truffle flavor".
• Kosher Salt - Diamond Crystal or Morton's brands are good. This is the go-to salt for seasoning food as you cook. It tastes better than iodized salt, and the coarse grains make it much easier to grab and distribute a pinch at a time. You should have a bowl of this by your stove at all times.
• Hain's Iodized Sea Salt - just like the normal iodized salt you grew up with, but without the trace minerals removed.  I've had the same box for probably 5 years. I sometimes use it for baking because I figure that is how most recipes are tested, and you know it will dissolve well. I don't know if it is just because of the fine texture, but it has a noticeably unpleasant sharpness to it when tasted by itself.

So that's my salty story. And there are hundreds more that look great and I hope to try someday. What other ones do you love (or hate)?

Persian Sweets, Allergy Cards, and Virtual Carnivals

There are three unrelated things I want to talk about today. My challenge as an utterly unprofessional writer: segue between them so that you as innocent reader feel as if they are intimately connected.

Have you ever had Persian (aka Iranian) bakery treats? The Seattle area is home to the delightful Minoo Bakery at 12518 Lake City Way NE. I neglected to bring my camera, but there is a nice picture of some of the sweets at Nerd's Eye View. Owners Rashid Ramzani and Ezzat Ghaderi clearly put a lot of love into their pastries. Everything in the case looks neat and precise, and the baking area in back is very clean and well organized, both of which I've found are strong indications of delicious baked goods to come. I had a couple of shortbread-like cookies made from chickpea flour, and a wonderful rolled phyllo and nut item similar to baklava.

Like many desserts from the Middle East and India, the Persian pastries are on the very sweet side, which makes them perfect for enjoying with coffee or tea. And also like many foods from that part of the world, they contain a lot of nuts. Which I dearly love, but Snacky Pants is severely allergic to. Now I don't mean it gives her a tummyache allergic. I mean hit her with the Epipen and off we go to the ER allergic. So we were delighted to learn about Select Wisely. They make laminated, wallet sized cards that describe your specific allergy or other dietary needs in many languages. Need to tell the Finns that you are a vegetarian? Headed to Croatia and lactose intolerant? They've got you covered. And if they don't have one in stock for your particular issue, they'll have it custom made.

And you know, when I'm traveling, I like to get in on local events and celebrations. When I'm hiking the blogosphere, I'm always on the lookout for a good carnival. Hey look! Is that our name in lights?