yum

My coworker Angela gave me some onion and roasted jam that she made and canned the other day. It was so CUTE, compact and nestled in a little jar, curled up in all its own caramelized goodness. We'd talked before of recession specials, making gifts edible and inedible. I went the inedible route and she got to work making jams and butter after hauling 25 pounds of jam jars home on the subway and canned every one of her jams.

I am a moderate consumer of garlic and a light consumer of onion. Angela, however is an ardent garlic fan. I wasn't sure I was ready for this yet - she had only just talked about an over consumption of garlic on her part, which she never thought was possible. I opened the jar and whole cloves of garlic starred back at me. Surrounded in the onion mix, it looked like edible amber. I scooped up a little in a teaspoon and tasted it and was completely bowled over. It was unexpectedly sweet and tangy and garlicky....almost like a spiced mango chutney but with a lot of kick. And to top it off, when showed me the labels she made and I might have melted from cute and tasty overload.

if garlic cloves were a rating system, i'd give her jam a whole head of garlic (which probably is the amount of garlic in one jar).

back in the groove?

i've been in california, land of bounty, laden with fresh produce. i was so excited..maybe i'd make something delicious, maybe i'd raid a farmers market, maybe i'd whip up some applesauce, maybe i'd make a cake...but instead, my body kicked into vacation mode allowed itself the luxury of being tired. i stuffed a large cinnamon roll into my mouth...mmm this is sooo good. i asked my aunt how she made it but she refused to tell me. 2 days later, i walked buy a freezer at sam's club and saw pilsbury cinnamon rolls....aw crap....did this mean my toiling and cooking, baking and rolling had really been for nothing if mass produced baked goods could more than convincingly pass off as homemade? i might sneak a grocery store survey into my week. and maybe sneak home some dough boy cinnamon rolls.

a couple days ago, i quickly slipped into a cafe and ordered some pesto linguine vongle and slurped it up. it was so easy...maybe i should give up cooking and eat out again? the frozen tortellini in the freezer wasn't THAT bad. today at the farmers market, i was freezing cold. why was i even here? it wasn't even the week i was planning on making a love stewed ragu and maybe after my california adventure, maybe i wouldn't even bother with these ragu shennanigans. i begrudgingly picked out some shallots. not only was it hurting my hands to pick them and pay for them, they would hurt my eyes later when i cut them. 2 pounds of apples to weigh me down....did i really want apple butter this week? might as well grab a bag of spinach. and OOF a load of potatoes. i was getting grouchier by the minute. at this point, what was another half pound of mushrooms? i thought about my fridge at home....there was nothing in it. this meant that when i got home, i'd actually have to MAKE FOOD. like my 15 pounds of produce would magically make itself.

i washed my spinach, brushed the oyster mushrooms, cut some garlic, put the fresh whole wheat pasta in the pot, half moping. i sauteed the garlic, spinach and mushrooms in olive oil and a sliver of butter. i couldn't smell anything. my nose has been blocked for the past week. more pepper. i dished it out and spun around, grabbed my parmesean from the fridge and swiftly grated it over the food.

still waiting to smell something amazing.

nothing.

oh well. here we go. i take one bite and wolfed the rest down. it was delicious. and lovely. and took less than 10 minutes to make. and Mario Batali has almost the same recipe. i'm back in the kitchen. for another 2 weeks. then i'll switch over to island time, shave ice, poké and poi.

Greenmarket Shopping

I'll admit it, I have farmer's market snobbery. It first started when I bundled home some carrots that looked too good to pass up. I'd never liked carrots, ever. But for some reason I thought that maybe this would be the day I might be converted. I sat in my kitchen looking despairingly at the large bunch of carrots. There was NO WAY I could eat them all. I thought maybe I could pawn some off to my friends after I had a nibble. Apprehensively, I took a small bite...then I gorged on carrots of the rest of the weekend like a rabid rabbit.

Very soon, the only thing that I bought regularly at he grocery store was pasta sauce. And pasta. Over the weekend I made a quick fix faux pasta sauce with heirloom tomatoes and fresh pasta from Knoll Crest farms. Now I swear never to buy anything from the grocery store except dishwashing liquid.



I've also noticed that my pile of plastic bags accumulated over the years has been dwindling. I've also been reprimanded by my friend for having so much plastic (not really that much) stick out of reusable grocery bag (oddly enough, from Steve Madden) So now I'm doing away with plastic bags as well.

I make my own apple sauce, lemon curd and pasta sauce. I've adopted a mentality that if its not homemade from scratch, its not worth eating. Slowly, I'm eating more brunch at home and only eating out at Shabu Shabu. Have I turned into a crunchy hippy? Should I take my birkenstocks and eco friendly clothing and move to Portland?

I had a little bit of a heart attack when Whole Foods wrapped my slab of Monte Enebro semi soft cheese TIGHTLY IN SARAN WRAP. WHAT IS THIS? I demanded that it be re-wrapped in cheese paper. They said they didn't have any. I wanted to hurl. They charge $24 a pound for this cheese and can't package it properly? If you can't package it right, I don't think you should be allowed to sell it. First overpriced wilty tasteless carrots and now this cheese packaging faux pas, Whole Foods is on my shitlist. I know my friends at Cooking Broke share a similar disdain towards Whole Foods.

Snuggler's Delight

I asked my boyfriend what he wanted to do last weekend and he said "hmm....can you make some food?" reality check: ok, so this means that we are eating food, but I am making food. Let me squeeze 12 tangerines worth of juice too while I'm at it.

In any case, this is great reason for me to actually make proper meals instead of a fridge raid sandwich or a jumble pasta. This means proper brunch without ungodly amounts of butter on corn bread, and it means I can have a cheese plate for after brunch dessert, and it means I can have the juice AND the coffee AND extra doodads without shelling out an extra $8 per doodad and drink. This means a full dinner and breakfast muffins/dessert muffin (I've decided that they are a dessert too.). Does this mean that I will be too stuffed to eat the ice cream that I was too lazy to make? Probably.




Saturday night dinner: Operation pork chop with homemade applesauce, featuring carefully considered summer to fall transition vegetables (salad of fresh vegetables next to medley of roast vegetables in complimentary colours (purples, yellows, oranges))





Sunday night spur of the moment dinner: Roast herb stuffed honey chicken on bed of kale surrounded by a moat of steamed corn. Purple garlic mashed potatoes (not featured) just for fun.

After dinner, we are too stuffed to talk, incredibly lethargic and together with dim yellow light and cello music, most definitely in the thick of a food haze. None of that wannabe fancy dinner with sauce drizzled in zigzag patterns, foam sculptures or decorative parsley ensembles. These were Practical Meals for Autumn, rich in freshly dug root vegetables. If a food fight should ensue, it was the type that could take you out with a single blow to the forehead with a sizeable chicken leg.

Don't you wish you had a House Husband too?

I have been playing breadwinner this month working as a TA while my boyfriend is taking some time off trying to get himself started as an artist. He has been far from starving and I have been more than figuratively a breadwinner, lucky for us both, since he has started making bread at home again! Above on the left is a sweet bread with brown sugar and poppy seed and on the right is a savoury bread with garam masala and pumpkin seeds!

Getting back in the artist mindset has been getting his creative juices flowing in the kitchen too. I come home from a long day at the university to try his latest creations. Below is a salsa soup/dip:



And the most delicious pizza I have ever tasted. He baked his own pizza dough in a rich shortbread consistency, then made the paste out of (Indian) madras sauce, veg from the market (including purple broccoli for colour) and parmesan to round out the flavour. It was the most scrumptious thing I have eaten in a looong time.

I love my house husband.

pamplemousse

Pitza

My boyfriend and I came up with 5 minute pizza - use pita bread, tomato sauce/olive oil/pesto for the base, cut up random veggies (in this case bell peppers and zucchini from the market), and shredded or sliced mozza cheese laid on top. Stick the whole pita in the toaster oven and push the toast button down (repeat if you desire crispier pitza).

Cut it up in pizza slices and serve as a light dinner/hors d'oeuvre/munchie. (unless your guest was an unappreciative carnivorous American, it is a great healthy smackeroo to offer up (add chicken if catering to such an audience).

The Lebanese guy at the market inspired me: he coined the term pitza - zitar bread (with the spices and such on top), and then tomatoes, eggplant, and roasted veg on top. YUM! This was our spontaneous-whatever-we-had-in-the-fridge timesaver version.

Create your own and post the results!

Love,
pamplemousse

The rising popularity of bacon

Bacon, until not so long ago was just another strip of tasty food. I'll admit to happily chowing down on unhealthy amounts of bacon. My favourite bagel is the most sacrilegious thing you could eat if you were Jewish – a bacon cream cheese bagel. Then mmmm...breakfast at Granma's...crispy bacon and her version of French toast which she called Bombay toast, but i'm not exactly sure why and if there as such a concoction in Bombay. Whatever it was, I liked saying Bombay toast because it felt flamboyant, like the mixture of eggs, milk and sugar would blow up in my face.

I digress.

Anyway, bacon has gained popularity in recent years to some sort of cult status. Even the anti-Scientologists are using bacon as a bribe. On my birthday, my coworkers gave me a bunch of bacon paraphernalia – a bacon wallet, bacon bandaids, a bacon folder and mini plastic pigs. My other coworker sent me links to a bacon scarf and a bacon alarm clock. Suddenly bacon was everywhere. At the farmers market, signs for "Seriously good bacon" and boards with a piece of bacon hanging in front of a spiral – bacon hypnosis.

Bacon bacon bacon bacon. Suddenly its cool to like bacon? But I've been a serious follower and avid consumer of bacon since childhood, not causing that much of a ruckus, sprawled out on the floor proclaiming my undying love for a strip of crispy pork. Does this mean that bacon will become passe? It's a little like people who feel like their neighborhoods have been invaded by flocks of tourists – I just want to eat some bacon without all the hooha. I don't need bacon muffins, bacon ice cream, bacon chocolate. I don't need a new age reinterpretation of bacon – I just want some bacon in my cream cheese bagel.

Existential muffin crisis

The bone I have to pick with muffins is that they're too big, too dry, too tasteless or too sweet. I have had great muffins – fluffy muffins. (the word "muffin" sounds snuggly and fluffy, like if it cram it into your mouth you'd be overcome by a blanket of food bliss – the ultimate comfort snack) I've made some pretttty good tasting muffins lately.

The thing is: I'm not sure if the muffins I've been making of late can even be classified as muffins.

What is a muffin? What is a cupcake? Is a cupcake a glorified muffin with icing and no filling? Is it possible to have a red velvet muffin? What about a fruity cupcake? Why do some people love cupcakes but avoid muffins? Would calling a cupcake a muffin make someone feel better about eating it? Would you rather eat a muffin for breakfast instead of a muffin? Is a cupcake even a breakfast food? Are muffins healthier than cupcakes if you disregard the icing? What if you put icing on a muffin? Is a cupcake a mini cake? Is a muffin a mini fruitcake?

The muffins I've made lately in my opinion, are a cupcake pudding muffin hybrid. Pudding (think bread pudding) because I've put so many ingredients of goodness in them (half a pint of blueberries and an oversized peach) that they're heavy and moist because of the juice in the fruit. Cupcake because they have a cake-like consistency and not crumbly (and the face that they're little). I've never liked "muffins" but mine are pretty darn good and if they were in a café I'd buy 2 of them. So maybe this is making a big deal out of nothing and I've made a muffin actually worthy of craving. Which in itself, is quite an accomplishment.

I want to start on another tub of ice cream. I'm a little disappointed with my watermelon lime and mint sorbet. It was tasty and all, but after all that straining and chilling, mixing and freezing, I'd rather drink a chunky watermelon juice with lime and mint.

I'm tempted to make another ice cream to make up for this, but this would mean another 6 egg white omelette, 60 merengues, or some pavlova, but this entails the use of my mixer that needs to devote its time to churning out ice cream.

This new Kitchenaid is a friend whore. First the ice cream maker, now potentially a citrus juicer (fresh orange juice for weekend brunch? LEMONADE? Limeade? Mojitoes?). What next? Rotor slicer? Pasta roller? Sausage stuffer?

el ron añejo

Here is a bottle of rum that is older than I am. I'm not sure exactly how old it is—I suspect it's around 28 or 29, possibly 30. In any case, it's way past its quarter-centennial.

Last week I threw this dinner party, and copious amounts of alcohol were consumed. Digging back into my experience working in a bar during university days, I cast about for interesting drinkables beyond the vodka+mixer varieties. 

Perhaps it would have been better to have drunk the rum straight up, but the daiquiris made with this were a big hit. They're so tasty and so easy to make I can't believe we didn't polish off the entire bottle. Then again, we'd already worked our way through a number of B-52s, a few rounds of Cosmopolitans and some freakishly addictive White Russians by the time I found the rum.

Side note: I always shake my White Russians with ice before straining, though I know the drink is usually just built in the glass. It just tastes so much better. The drink is chilled without having the ice sit in it and diluting it, and it gives the drink this delightful frothy mouthfeel.

Anyway, so: the rum. Slightly unorthodox, making daiquiris with dark rum, but I basically just slung some ice cubes in a shaker, generous tot of the rum, brown sugar (how come you taste so good), lime juice. And then shake it vigorously until fingers feel numb from the cold and the shaker is frosted all along its surface. Crack it open, strain into glass, little bit of Cuba in your life.

mmmaking mmmuffins

MUFFINS! double chocolate muffins with sour cherries and blueberries! I've stuffed two of these in my mouth and now it's time to snuggle.

Also, The Boozy Floozy comes to blog on The Mousse and the Pamplemousse!

Heart Attack Waiting to Happen

I was beside myself after I threw in more herbs with the sauteed fingerling potatoes and drizzled some CRÈME FRAICHE over them. I thought that I must've died or entered another dimension of space and time. Then I thought I'd make some basil ice cream.

I substituted the lemon verbena with basil and added a generous handful. I bought a LARGE bunch of it from chelsea market ("Do you have any lemon verbena?" "WHAT? LEMON JUICE?!" "that's ok, nevermind.") for $2, roots and all. I felt like it was such a waste and maybe I should quickly go home and re-pot it or something.

This is the first time I've made any ice cream, save for shaved ice in a snoopy sno cone maker and easy to make ice cream from powdered mix by the same people who made the easy bake oven. There are conflicting recipes for ice cream – some say to use heavy cream, some none at all, more parts heavy cream to less parts milk, some said only heavy cream and half and half (!!!!), but whatever it was, I wasn't going to do any dairy substitutions this first try, lest the proportions made my ice cream structurally unstable (too watery, an ice block, etc). The end result was extremely delicious and delightfully fluffy, but what I'd created was a heart attack waiting for me in the freezer, 6 egg yolks making very good friends with an army of heavy cream. I'm afraid to eat more than a teaspoon of it. Death by ice cream? More of a reality than ever.

If you were to do this, I suggest increasing the amount of whole milk and decreasing the amount of heavy cream such that you only use 3/4 of a cup of it.

Given I have a tub of death hanging out in my freezer, I might make a healthier friend for it. Maybe some blackberry and apricot sorbet. Or some blood orange, pamplemousse, basil and mint sorbet for when Pamplemousse comes to visit. I'm feeling better about the sorbet and won't be worried about halfing the sugar measurements and causing some horrible ingredient imbalance.

Ice cream isn't as daunting or complicated to make as you think. It's just a pain in the ass. It's a little like doing laundry, waiting an hour for your herbs to steep in the milk and cream, making the custard and then chilling it for another 2 hours, and putting it in the ice cream maker for another 20 minutes. In fact, I recommend making ice cream on the same day you do laundry for maximum efficiency. I also recommend making an omelette as well so the 6 egg whites don't go to waste.

I woke up this morning at 8 and flipped on the tv and watched Grill It with Bobby Flay. I'm not a huge fan of Bobby Flay, but what i loved about this was the SIMPLICITY of cooking on a grill with just spices, olive oil and a bit of foil.

I haven't cooked in a while because of how hot its been and I don't have a grill, but I was excited enough to pull my rainbow carrots out of the fridge and saute them with some lovely buttery creamy fingerling potatoes from the farmers market. These were so good on their own they hardly needed any salt. I wonder if maybe tonight I should make more of the same with a light cream sauce of some sort (just a drizzle), sans carrots.

It's nothing fancy, but its unquestionably delicious. I think I seemed to have skipped breakfast altogether.

Bon Appetite

I was standing in Pamplemousse's kitchen last month making a white bean dip with garlic scapes and took them out in their curls one by one and snipped them into her blender.

"Here smell them, they smell so good."

She looked at me and said "I know. I already chewed on it."

We've been friends for a while, but our mutual lust for food was only recently discovered over barbecue, strawberry salad and breakfast with herbs. I didn't always like to eat, it was a hassle and it was too hot to eat in Singapore. Now it's sort of taken over my life since cold winters were a force to be reckoned with and an onset of intense farmers market fervor. Vegetables have also are fairly recent thing for me. I never liked carrots until a year ago and meticulously picked them out of food. Now I've been seen clamoring for spring carrots at 7.30 in the morning and buying POUNDS of mesclun mix to hoard in my fridge.

So thus begins the food blog of The Mousse and the Pamplemousse (the thing and the thing configuration in most arbitrary names for English and Irish pubs). In other news, I might ask an eggshell blue mixer to come and live with me this weekend.