Potato-y comfort

I (Alexa) was feeling like comfort food tonight, AND we had some potatoes that we had to use before they went bad, so I made a jumbo potato pancake.

I grated 2 potatoes, 1 onion, and 3 carrots in the cuisinart, mixed in 2 eggs, some panko, 2 chopped scallions and salt and pepper. Then I fried it up in a large heavy-bottomed skillet for about 15 minutes, until the bottom was nice and browned.

The question is: How does one flip such a beast of a potato pancake? The trick is to slide it onto a large plate, cover the plate, flip it over, then slide it back into the pan so the other side can cook.

To round out the meal, it was topped with an over medium egg and served with a simple green salad.

That’s amore!

Pasta night and we are going through a MAJOR orecchiette phase.

I made a simple sauce with onion, garlic, Pomi chopped tomatoes and frozen chopped spinach (and red pepper flakes).

We had some cherry tomatoes that were on their way out, if you know what I mean, so I roasted them with some garlic. I roasted them for 20 minutes in 350F oven, until they were wilted and then I pureed them and added the mixture to the pasta sauce that was already cooking on the stove.

The pasta was served with an arugula salad with carrots, dill and scallions.

…We had a lovely pasta dinner complete with French wine.

To top it all off, here’s a pasta meal for two for later this week. Just add orecchiette.

Things that get left out overnight on our kitchen counter.

We read this article last year, tried it, and were BLOWN away. We’re pretty major coffee drinkers, but who wants to drink hot coffee in the summer? We thought we found the answer when the bagel store on the corner was selling iced coffed with (get this) coffee ice cubes! We were hooked. Then they started charging extra for the coffee cubes. Then they stopped offering them all together, and even looked confused when I asked about them. As if I had dreamed this up.

Anyway, thank you Cindy Price, for opening up our eyes to the wonder that is cold brewed iced coffee. We made our first batch of the season tonight. I hope it’s hot tomorrow!

Recipe: Cold-Brewed ICED COFFEE

Time: 5 minutes, plus 12 hours’ resting (2 servings)

1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best)

1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.

2. Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste.

Here she is, just hanging out on the kitchen counter til tomorrow.

DAY 2 REPORT FROM THE GROWING CULTURE

Lots of reproduction happening in our kitchen. Yes, we’ve created a world that all the yeast in the air want to get a piece of.

The jar smelt a bit more rank today. The colony, she was hungry when I pulled back her plastic wrap. “Feed me, Seymour”, I heard coming from within the bubbly bath of fermentation. So, I did. She got 50g of bread flour, and 1/3 cup (65g) tepid spring water. She was stirred until smooth, loosely covered with plastic wrap and now she’s back…on the kitchen counter.

View Day One of the sourdough culture growing….

Cultural Experience

After experimenting and trying out a lot of instant yeast breads (two shown here, Country White and Honey Whole Wheat), I feel it is time to move into deeper territory. It is time to develop my own culture. In reading Local Breads by Daniel Leader of Bread Alone, I learned that anyone can make their own “starter” from just flour and water. That’s right, you don’t need an ‘in’ with San Francisco’s bread making elite… who knew?! Now my sous chefs will be yeast and bacteria dormant in the apartment air (kinda strange). They will help me create flavorful, tangy sourdough.

This process can apparently take up to 10 days, but requires very little actual work.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 Cup Tepid spring water
• 3 Tbsp (25g) Rye flour
• 3 Tbsp (25g) Unbleached Bread flour

Method:

Combine ingredients in a large glass jar and stir with a rubber spatula until smooth. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature. Stir for 30 seconds every 8 hours for 24 hours….

We’re fishing for yeast…I hope we catch something tasty.

Day One:

Greetings from a Kitchen in Queens!

After our trip to ‘H-Mart‘ on Northern Blvd in Great Neck, we got some wonderful purple kale fitting of a nice Macrobiotic Plate. The Chinese way of healthy cooking simply cooks the food in order to help the body’s digestion start the process of breaking down nutrient-rich vegetables. Macrobiotic cooking focuses on steamed hearty seasonal vegetables, whole grains, and here we’ve served it with tempeh. Lightly cooked, lightly seasoned, very fresh, Qing Dan!

Leftovers, (AKA tomorrow’s lunch), veggie sushi, kicked up with wasabi, enoki mushrooms, & some bad-ass rolling skills.