afaic, 8-) FMH2urs

OMG.  I'm not one to heavily emote; even less extensively do I emoticon, or otherwise venture into the acronymous language to which cell-phone texting has given birth.  But OMG.  I think I've found the supreme chocolate-lovers dessert.  You also have to love coconut.  

. . . And curry, but stay with me.

Purchase and then have ready these ingredients:

-1 14 oz. can coconut milk (lite is fine, and I'd recommend it, since regular weighs in around 40 grams of fat per can)

-3 Tbsp. sugar

-Scant 1/4 tsp. salt

-2 Tbsp. arrowroot powder

-1 teaspoon curry powder (optional, but try it.  Come on.)

-2 Tbsp. good cocoa

-3 1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped or chocolate chips

-1 tsp. vanilla

-1/4 c. sweetened, flaked coconut, toasted in a hot, dry skillet (unless you're soulless, 1/4 cup ain't going to do it here, so make sure you have extra on hand)

1.  Shake the coconut milk can vigorously before opening.  Then heat one cup of it in a saucepan over low heat with the sugar and the salt, until it just barely starts to simmer.

2.  In a separate bowl, whisk together remaining coconut milk, arrowroot and curry powders, and cocoa.  It'll look like thick chocolate pudding.

3.  When coconut milk/sugar mixture has started simmering, take 1/4 c. of it and whisk it gradually into the arrowroot mixture.  Turn the heat down to its lowest setting.  Then gradually mix the arrowroot mixture into the coconut milk in the pot, whisking vigorously and continuously.  Keep whisking until it returns to a simmer and thickens a bit, ~1 minute.

4.  Remove from heat, and continue to whisk for another minute.  Now whisk in the vanilla and chocolate; stir till smooth.  Portion the pudding into ramekins (or mugs, or small bowls, or glasses) and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.  Plastic wrap=no pudding skin.  When ready to eat, garnish with toasted coconut.  Devour.  (Adapted from The Oregonian, who in turn adapted it from 101cookbooks.com, which happens to be on my blogroll.  Go figure.)

P.S. If you use dark chocolate in this, then it would be vegan!

Feeling Centimental?

I'd like to trumpet the SECOND world-altering event of this week, after a lovely inauguration last Tuesday: this is my 100th blog post!  If you were here, I'd pour you a glass of champagne and feed you canapes.  But as it stands, the only people around who actually read this blog are Adam my husband-to-be and my dog Cally.  And it's a toss-up between those two as to who actually reads my posts on a regular basis.  So no champagne for them.

Speaking of Cally, here we are emerging from a nap today.  (And she wonders why I yell at her for getting on the couch.)  It's been a snowy day, perfect for lounging at the coffee shop, the briefest of walks along the river, and cuddling on the bed... not very good fodder for a celebratory blog posting, I admit.  But sometimes 'homey' is the name of the game on a Sunday in late January. 

Dinner actually turned out to be a little exotic: I whipped up a really yummy batch of Pad Thai, that pink-hued noodle dish with shrimp, bean sprouts, and peanuts.  Only my grocery store didn't have bean sprouts and if I was going to spring for shrimp I didn't want to spring for peanuts (I'm trying to buy a house here, people).  The irony of the thing is, peanuts do not sell for peanuts.  Nor do any nuts, really.  It turned out well anyway, though I'll definitely try both stores in my 'hood for bean sprouts next time.  It was missing that fresh, juicy crunch.

It's fun to make, and has some rather unconventional ingredients.  You cook shrimp, green onions, and garlic in a hot saute-- would 'stir-fry' be the appropriate jargon here?; then add ground dried shrimp (sounds grody, but it adds great flavor), fish sauce, chili flakes, sugar, and ketchup (is that what they use in Thailand?!).  Stir for a few minutes, then drag the mixture to one side of the pan, and pour two beaten eggs in to the other side.  Let the eggs cook un-disturbed for about a minute, then scramble them up with the other ingredients.  Dump in the rice noodles (which have been drained after you soaked them in very hot water for 15 minutes), and stir for a couple more minutes over high heat.  Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges (and bean sprouts and peanuts).  Very delicious flavors, though next time I'll probably cut back on the noodles to allow for more sauciness.
Then Adam devised a very scrumptious hand-held dessert.  Homemade (by Adam!) chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with a heavy dousing of Tillamook vanilla ice cream on top.  Mmm.  That's cause for celebration right there.

Thanks for reading, my friends.  If you continue to do so, I promise at least one hundred more.

What a Crock

For my first crock pot recipe, I tried something on the sweeter side: Rice Pudding.  Heretofore a recipe most commonly used when there was at least 2 cups of leftover rice (already cooked) sitting in the fridge, I've now got a recipe that calls for raw rice, which takes a lot longer to cook in a slow cooker, and which means you can leave the house while it simmers.  My recipe is also a lot healthier than the ones that call for condensed milk, cream, or eggs.  Now that I think about it, it's actually vegan.  But don't let that stop you: it's quite rich and delicious.

3/4 c. short grain rice (you could even try brown)

3 c. soy milk (try vanilla-flavored if you've got it)

1/4 c. white sugar

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3/4 tsp. salt

2 cinnamon sticks, or ground cinnamon to taste.

Put all ingredients into crock pot, stir well.  Cook on low for 2 1/2 hours, stirring once or twice if you're around.  And be careful: as is the case with regularly cooked rice, if you leave it on too long, you can over do it.  I was out running errands and came home to find my rice pudding quite firm and a tiny bit scorched on the sides.  It's still delicious, but I'll keep a better eye on it next time.  Enjoy for breakfast, dessert, or snack, chilled or warmed in the microwave.

Blackberry Blitz

While riding bikes around my new town, Hood River, Hilary and I discovered miles and miles of blackberry bushes-- first we found them on May St, but once we started looking around we realized they're ALL OVER town, including at the dead end a block and a half from my house.  It's newly August, so the berries are pushing each other out of house and home to find space to ripen on their vines, and of course Hil and I were there to relieve them of their housing crunch with as many bowls and tupperwares as we could find in my kitchen.

If you are as lucky as I am, and live in a place profuse with blackberries, here are a couple recipes to put the berries to good use.  The first is a simple jam-- we brewed up over five quarts of the stuff (using, also, some of the many pounds of rhubarb Adam's co-worker forced upon him the other day).  See my strawberry jam recipe for details on how to make it.

The other recipe, for Blackberry-Basil Crumble, I'm taking right out of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  So, I give all credit to Ms. Kingsolver for making this recipe so shamefully easy.  But I will take a small slice of credit for the specific one executed by me, and photographed here.  We must gloat over our desserts when we can.

Blackberry-Basil Crumble

2-3 apples, chopped (I peeled them first)

2 pints blackberries

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1 large handful of basil leaves, chopped

1/4 c. honey (or more if your fruit is not so sweet)

Preheat the oven to 400F.  Combine the above ingredients in a casserole dish or pie plate; mix, and set aside.

5 Tbsp. flour

3 heaping Tbsp. brown sugar

1 stick cold butter

Cut butter into flour and sugar, then rub between your fingers to make a chunky, flaky substance-- uniformity not necessary here.  Sprinkle over the top of the fruit and bake for 30 minutes or so, till golden and bubbly.  And, of course, be sure there is vanilla ice cream in the freezer.

 

Pie #3, Sort of

Well, I think I've been converted.  Anyone who would mess with the time and painstaking labor of a piecrust, when they could just (literally) throw together a galette dough, has obviously got too little to do.  Our friend Taylor, while visiting our little berry patch from San Francisco, showed me how to make a galette with some blue-, rasp-, and blackberries obtained from my local farmer's market.  He was inspired, he said, by a show he saw on the Food Network where famed chef Jacques Pepin made a galette in about thirty seconds flat.  I timed Taylor on his galette-- about 19 minutes, which is peanuts compared to any piecrust.  Watch, follow, and learn.

1. Put 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour in a bowl.  Put together a glass of ice water and set it to the side within reach.  Add a pinch of salt, and three big pinches of sugar.  Pour a little ice water on, and start kneading.  Add ice water as needed until the dough holds together.

2. Turn dough out onto a floured surface.  Roll out until you have a large, flattened piece of dough in, really, whatever shape you like.  Cut in half, and lay each piece next to its mate on a cookie sheet.

3. Mix your berries (I had three pints) with sugar-- a quarter cup, I'd say; less if your fruit is extra sweet.  Add a squeeze of lemon, and a tablespoon of tapioca if the juiciness is out of control, and mix 'em up.

4. Spoon half the berry mixture in a little heap onto one dough sheet, and repeat with the rest of the berries on the other dough.  Fold up the sides of the dough and make little pouches out of them.  You could probably make quite cute little purses, if you cared to.  Try and make sure there are no holes in the bottom so as to not lose any precious juices.

5. Bake at 425F for 25-30 minutes.

If you're going the fresh summer berry route and if you're taking the galettes camping with you as we did, you'd probably best pick up a can of whipped cream and douse them well before eating like a hog.