Been Away, Drinking Dark and Stormies

So. I haven't been posting anything for a while...

obviously.

Why? Mostly it's because Sarah and I have just been too busy in the evenings to be bothered with taking photos of and writing about the food we've been eating. She's been taking pictures of our weekly menus since she's been writing them up so I could potentially post those somewhere. Meh. Maybe I'll get to it someday, but don't count on it.

Also, I've been taking on slightly more of a leadership type role at Aikido of Santa Cruz and have been home in the evenings much less often to cook. Because of this Sarah has been planning easier dinners, things like sandwiches or veggie burgers or baked tofu on rice, stuff that's easy to prepare and quick to clean up. Unfortunately also not really post worthy.

But, I still had a bunch of photos on the camera. Mostly things from a year back that I just never got to. I had some free time this weekend and figured I'd just get the photos onto the network and set things up for a few posts at once.

This will be the first of the "old stuff" posts that I should have written a long time ago.

So, I'm sorry, we've been away, drinking Dark and Stormies.

Sarah and I have been on a cocktail kick lately. First it was wine (it's still wine really, just not as often), then sour beer for a little while (still this too actually), now it's cocktails. I've been reading up on the classics, trying to get a feel for how the most traditional drinks are built and how they relate to both each other and some of the newer cocktails being invented today.  I think I'm starting to get a good feel for things, but, not being a professional bartender, I have only myself and Sarah to practice on.  Boo hoo...

The Dark and Stormy is a classic.  Easy to make, easy to drink.

Dark and Stormy:

  2 oz. dark rum
  Juice of 1/2 fresh lime (1/2 - 1 oz.)
  4 oz. ginger beer

Build over ice in a tumbler in the order given. Stir briefly and gently. Imbibe.

Now.  Ginger beer (or ginger ale) can of course be purchased.  But why would anybody do that when making it yourself is so much more fun and tastes so much better?  That's right, no one.  The recipe below is one I've adapted from one posted by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, the head bartender at Clyde Common, a great tavern in Portland, Oregon.

I've kept the basic structure of Morgenthaler's recipe, keeping the ratio of sugary to watery, but I've had to change the way the ginger gets in.  He uses ginger juice, which is a pain in butt if you don't have a juicer, something I don't and don't want to own, so instead I make a ginger simple syrup and up the water in the recipe to make up for the reduction in the "watery" ginger juice.

As Moregenthaler says, you can make the ginger beer in one of two ways: ferment by adding yeast, or add the syrup with lemon juice to carbonated water.  I prefer the natural fermentation method because it's more fun and I think the flavor is better in the final product.  Also, if you need to buy the carbonated water to mix the syrup with you've completely defeated the purpose of not just buying ginger beer in the first place.

A note on soda making: I've read into it a bit and am leaving out many many steps.  Please read more detailed instructions elsewhere before moving forward.  Nothing scary to worry about, there are just particulars I won't mention.

Ginger Beer:
  modified, makes one bottle

  3 oz. Ginger Simple Syrup*
  2 oz. Lemon Juice, fresh or not
  11 oz. lukewarm water
  25 granules Red Star Champagne Yeast (really, the tiniest amount, less than a pinch)

Add all ingredients to a well cleaned 16 oz. bail-top style beer bottle.  Let sit at room temp for approximately 24 hours.  Carefully and slowly check for carbonation by releasing the bail-top.  If carbonation seems sufficient move bottles to the fridge, if not let sit for another 6-12 hours and check again.  Continue to release the excess carbonation from the bottles once they move into the fridge as the fermentation will continue slowly despite the low temperature.   Drink.

*Ginger Simply Syrup:

  2 cups water
  2 cups sugar
  2 oz. ginger, peeled and finely diced
  1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
  1 cardamom pod, broken

Boil water, sugar, and spices for about 3 minutes.  Let spices steep in syrup at least 1 day before straining into a clean jar.  Use liberally.

Enjoy!

Upright Brewing No. Six

Sarah and I are members of a couple of the K&L wine clubs and every month they send us a pamphlet with that month's news and recommendations along with the wine. Included in every issue is a beer recommendation.  It only takes up about half a page in the 20 page volume and there are only one or two recommendations given, but they're always gems.

This bottle here was one of those recommendations...

Upright Brewing's No. Six - Rye, 6.7%

  From Upright's website: "Six is a dark rye beer with earthy hop flavors and caramel malts lending an initial full palate that finishes semi-dry. The overall balance of the Six makes it easy to pair with richly prepared meats along with many harder cheeses."

 I remember this being nice and smooth with very little bitterness and just a little bit of a sour finish.  We had it with the fava pizza and it was great.

Fava Bean Puree Pizza with Green Garlic, Chevre, and an Egg

Fava beans have been making their way into our CSA box lately.  The past few weeks I've noticed an extra bag in the swap box along with the other typical swap items (leafy greens) so have gladly accepted the (obviously) unwanted beans.  Whoever is leaving them behind doesn't really know what they're missing out on.

Granted, fava beans can be a pain.  After you've finished shucking, blanching, and peeling the beans, there's not much left over to brag about.  A busy family on the go may not have the time or gumption to sit down for a good half hour and work through a pile of beans.  I imagine some people might get a little antsy in this situation. 

The fava bean is a cover crop, as far as I can tell, used to help fix nitrogen in the soil in the times between other plantings.  Our friends Megan and Kelly took us to their place of employ, Filoli gardens in Woodside near Palo Alto, where they have a patch of favas growing in a section of the vegetable garden there.  Typically they would just plow everything back into the ground as compost, but we had the chance to take out five or ten pounds of beans a couple weekends ago before that happened.  Which is great, the more the merrier. 

This fava bean abundance has afforded Sarah and I the chance to try out an excellent fava bean puree recipe that Sarah found last year.  We've worked out that the best application for the puree is to either spread it on toast or use it in place of sauce on a pizza  What you see here is the result of our efforts...

Fava Bean Puree Pizza with Green Garlic, Chevre, and a Backyard Egg

Fava Bean Puree

2 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 Tbs. Fresh Rosemary

2 Cloves Garlic, or more, finely diced

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

2 Cups Fava Beans, shucked, blanched, and peeled

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 Tbs. Olive Oil, for pureeing

Lightly saute the garlic, rosemary, and red pepper flakes in oil for about a minute.  Throw in the shelled beans and saute until heated through.  In a food processor puree the sauteed beans with salt, pepper, and more olive oil to the desired consistency.  The beans can take on a lot of oil at this point, though I usually use water if I need to smooth out the mix after I've added the first bit of olive oil.

For the pizza:

Heat the oven to at least 450F an hour before baking time.  Roll out a single recipe of the pizza dough on a well floured surface and transfer to a peel or pan.  Spread liberally with the fava bean puree, top with finely diced green garlic (shallots would work well here too) and crumbled chevre.  Crack an egg whole over the middle of the pizza and toss it in the oven.  I like to cook my pizzas about 8 minutes in a 450 degree oven with a pizza stone.

Eggs on Toast

Sarah relayed to me one day that she had heard Nora Ephron say on a podcast something along the lines of, "Part of becoming an adult is letting go of the dream of either owning a restaurant or owning a bookstore." Sarah joked that becoming an organic farmer should also be on that list too.  "Boo," I thought, "I kinda want to do all of those things". 

Needless to say both Sarah and I have vague dreams of owning a business.  We've talked semi-seriously about opening a dine-in theater or moving away somewhere and opening a B&B.  It usually comes up during breakfast when we're munching on our favorite dish trying to figure out what we would serve people if we were tasked with making something.  Invariably there is always one solid stand-by that we would serve to anybody and always be proud of.  This thing is the Eggy Sandwich, or just simply Eggs on Toast.

This is perhaps the most simple thing.  An egg, fried or poached, on toasted bread with butter or cheese (or both!), and sometimes a few apple slices.  Nothing fancy, just really good.

The Eggy Sandwich is of course a staple of the fast food breakfast industry and along with burnt coffee has fueled the sad little morning fires of destitute office workers everywhere.  Though having it handed to you luke-warm, squashed, and wrapped in crinkly paper just makes you feel a little worse off once you get a good look at it.  Not a great way to start things off.

Instead, take five minutes and make it for yourself at home.  Toast, check.  Poached egg microwave style, check.  Slice of cheese, check.  An apple for the road, and we're done. 

How to Poach an Egg in the Microwave

I used to poach eggs in the microwave when I worked at the old Beckmann's Bakery coffee shop in Santa Cruz.  This is how it was done:

Crack and egg into a microwave safe bowl, pour in about 2 Tbs.of water.  If you like your egg whites more firm add about 1/2 tsp. of white vinegar as well.  Cover the bowl with a small microwave safe plate before putting it in the microwave.  Cook everything for about 60 seconds at 80% power.  Check the egg.  If it is not as done as you'd like it, microwave it at 80% power in 15 second intervals until it's finished.  Spoon the egg out of the water and enjoy.

I've noticed that the egg yolks end up overdone when the whites are well finished.  So to get the runny yolk like you're supposed to you'll have to have whites that are a bit more squishy than is ideal. 

Tofu Egg Salad

You'll notice that we've changed the title of our kitchen's menu for this (last) week from "The Ugly Ducking Specials" to "The Dweed Diner". The reason for this is because of our monthly tradition of having our friends Megan and Kelly over for dinner. We call the event "Dweener" when we have it at our place and "Kegener" when we have it at their place. You know, "Dwiggins-Reed Dinner" or "Kelly-Megan Dinner" depending on the location...

The compound noun "dweed" comes from the combination of Sarah's maiden name, Dwiggins, and my bachelor name (?), Reed.  Early in our engagement Sarah and I discussed whether or not she should change her name from Dwiggins to Reed.  As we had just finished our academic careers we knew it was common for published researchers to not bother changing their names when they get married to reduce future confusion. So not changing her name at all was one option. Hyphenating her name, Dwiggins-Reed, was also an option.  I mentioned half jokingly that we should just combine the two and then we could both change our names to Dweed.  Big joke, ha ha...the family gave us funny looks whenever we brought it up.  Anyway, Sarah and I adopted it informally just between the two of us.

This week we will be using up some of the bread hunks in the freezer as well as the turnips we got from the CSA to make another panade.  We'll be making a pizza with roasted garlic, egg drop soup with green onions, carrots, and spinach and will also be making Tofu Egg Salad for our weekly potluck with the Olins.  Despite the fact that we get a ton of eggs every week, we still make fake egg salad to cut back on the cholesterol.  This stuff is great:

Tofu Egg Salad

16 oz. Block Extra Firm Tofu

1/4 Cup Mayonnaise

1 Tbs. Dijon Mustard

1 tsp. Lemon Juice

1/2 tsp. Turmeric

Salt and Pepper

Finely Diced Veggies (I like carrots, celery, and dill pickles)

Anything else you might like in egg salad...

Wrap the tofu in a paper towel and weight it to drain.  When ready mash the tofu into little bits using your hands (I've tried using the stand mixer with the paddle attachment to do this, it doesn't work out that great).  Mix in the mayo, mustard, lemon juice, turmeric, salt, pepper, and the diced veggies.  Taste for seasoning, adjust as necessary.  Enjoy.