Posts Tagged ‘recipe’

August 15, 2010
Just peachy

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Earlier this month, my best friend Elizabeth flew in for a visit. Each time she’s come to town I’ve taken her to see a different part of the state—and since we’re in the middle of fruit season, this time we headed for the Yakima Valley.

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At this time of year, the roadsides are piled high with apple crates,

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ready for the harvest that will begin in a few weeks.

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The pears seem to be a little closer—

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they’re ripening quite nicely.

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Right now, though, it’s peach season. The Tailor sent us on an errand for as much preserve-ready fruit as we could get our hands on—so I took him literally and brought home fifty pounds of Regina peaches,

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another fifty of Rival apricots,

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and a handful of beautiful donuts for a snack.

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Once he got over his shock at the trunk full of fruit, and set aside a few peaches for the pie I had been begging for,

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the Tailor canned up an impressive array of preserves. From top left forward: peach jam; ginger-peach chutney (a collaboration with Jessica); sliced peaches in medium syrup; apricot jam; apricot sauce.

My favorite, and the one I can’t wait to taste with a little kugel:

Apricot Jam
(yield: about 10 half-pint jars)

– 2 quarts (8 cups) crushed, peeled apricots
– 6 cups sugar

Now, I’m not going to go into great detail about the whys and wherefores of home canning now, but if canning’s your thing, this will be old hat for you anyway. If not, and you’d like more specific instructions, I’d suggest our favorite resource: Putting Food By.

Anyway. Wash your jars in hot water (most books will tell you to sterilize them, but that’s what the hot water bath at the end is for). Keep the jars hot in a low oven (if you pour hot jam into cold jars, the glass can shatter), and the lids sterile in boiling water until ready to use.

Combine the apricots and sugar in a large stock pot. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Cook at a rapid boil until thick (when the mixture reaches about 220° F, depending on your preference), about an hour, stirring frequently to prevent sticking or scorching.

When the mixture jells, pour it into the hot jars, leaving a 1/4-inch headspace in each. Wipe the jar rims with a clean cloth (any jam left on the rim will prevent the jar from sealing), attach lids, and tighten ring bands. Process in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes (longer if you live at high altitude).

Let cool for 12 hours before removing the ring bands. Store in a dark, dry, cool place.

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Or, if you just can’t wait, pop open a jar and have some toast ready.

Posted by Chandler at 5:39 PM in Adventure, Pacific Northwest, Sustainability  |  Permalink  |   Comments (3)
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May 02, 2010
Around the world in 80 dishes

I think it’s time to get that new wok I’ve been meaning to buy, because I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot of use. The cookbook I illustrated is now available, and I can’t wait to give it a whirl.

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Tacoma Community House has been serving Tacoma’s immigrant community for decades, offering an enormous range of educational and social services to its clients—including language translation and interpretation, job training, citizenship assistance, and employment programs. The diversity of clients is astounding—in the last year alone, TCH served clients from fifty-four countries. To bring their clients together and welcome them to the community, TCH has a tradition of holding potluck dinners. As a result, they’ve compiled an impressive collection of international recipes over the years. In honor of their 100th anniversary this year (can you believe that?), TCH has compiled a collection of their favorites into a cookbook: ¡Entrée!

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I have a feeling they had quite a job of editing; ¡Entrée! contains over 140 recipes from five world regions.

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Dishes represented here include empanadas, tabouli, spring rolls, moussaka, samosas, gazpacho, cottage pie, a wide range of curries, and even American Indian fry bread.

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To bring all these recipes together into a cohesive theme, all the illustrations focused on hands—which came in handy for the step-by-step instructions.

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(Hence all the hand-modeling by Zooey.)

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Each recipe is as authentic as it gets—instead of being filtered through some chef or ethnic restaurant, these dishes come directly from the family traditions of TCH’s clients. They even passed the Tailor test (and he has high standards!)—no processed ingredients, no store-bought shortcuts, no mention of canned cream-of-mushroom soup. He even gave the English plum pudding recipe (which is one of his specialties) his stamp of approval.

I think I’ll be trying this one first:

Arroz Mexicano (Mexican Rice)

1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp lard or cooking oil
1 cup long grain rice

Tip: It’s important in Mexican rice to fry the rice before you add the liquids. It will make a difference in the texure and taste.

1. Mix tomato sauce and water together; add green onions, garlic and salt to the tomato sauce.

2. Heat lard or oil in a sauce pan on medium-high heat; add the rice and cook till slightly brown.

3. Add tomato sauce mixture and lower the heat; add more water of the mixture does not cover the rice. Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes or until liquid is gone from the pan.

4. Lard is used by many Mexican families for cooking instead of cooking oils.

Oh, and about the lard: heck, yes. If you’ve ever tried refried beans at an authentic Mexican restaurant, the lard is what makes it taste so good. Don’t be afraid—a little lard won’t kill you. Go ahead and try it! Learn it, love it, lard it.

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I loved working with TCH (and with Hana Kato, their talented designer, who treated my illustrations with such care), but even better was seeing ¡Entrée! on a bookstore shelf. You can find a copy in town at King’s Books, or you can try more sample recipes and order online here.

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Posted by Chandler at 11:48 AM in Illustration, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (6)
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February 26, 2010
Turkish Delight

Okay, so this post isn’t actually about Turkish Delight, but it does contain a delightful Turkish recipe, and it’s what real Turkish Delight would be if I ran the world.

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This exotic dessert is another favorite dish of ours—a recipe from the Tailor’s friends in Istanbul. I crave it pretty much all the time, and come January I’ll start bugging the Tailor incessantly until he finally hauls out the scale and sugar. But since it’s fairly labor-intensive, and depends on the seasonality of the pumpkins we store in the attic, we usually only get to enjoy it a couple of times a year. Trust me, though, it’s well worth the effort, and is one of the most elegant, flavorful and visually appealing desserts I’ve ever tasted (just look at that gorgeous translucent pumpkin!). Try it next time you have a special occasion and you want an alternative to pumpkin pie (no disrespect to my favorite pie, of course!).

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Candied Pumpkin

You’ll need: one small-to medium sugar pie pumpkin, one scale, and a whole lotta sugar.

Wash and peel your pumpkin (I’m not going to lie: peeling ain’t fun).

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Cut it in half and remove the stem and innards.

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Weigh the pumpkin; get as precise a measurement as you can, because this is important. Note: since our scale is metric, and since the original recipe is written in metric (those Turks!), we don’t bother to convert back. So all the measurements in this post are metric—if you need to convert to the English system, there are lots of online conversion calculators. And the ratios in this recipe are pretty straightforward, so conversion really won’t be difficult. A word of caution, though: double- and triple-check your converted measurements! If one of your proportions is wrong, you’ll have gone through a lot of work (and pumpkin) for a failed mess.

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Now it’s time to make your algebra teacher proud—get out a pen and paper and write up a little proportion equation. You will need 750 g of sugar (we use that raw organic cane stuff) for every kilogram of pumpkin—that’s a 3:4 ratio (by weight, remember, not volume!), if you’re converting.

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Slice each half of the pumpkin in half again, and then slice each quarter into strips, about 1 1/2 inches wide.

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Place the pumpkin strips in a heavy-bottomed stock pot and pour your carefully-measured sugar over the pumpkin.

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Cover and let sit overnight (or at least six hours). The sugar will draw the water out of the pumpkin and shrink the slices, resulting in smaller pumpkin pieces floating in syrup.

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Over low heat, bring the sugar/pumpkin mixture to a simmer. Stirring gently every 15 minutes or so, cook the pumpkin for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until all the pumpkin pieces are translucent—this finishes the candying process. The thicker the slices, the longer this will take.

Turn off the heat, and allow the candied pumpkin to cool to room temperature. Transfer to a covered refrigerator dish and chill. Serve in small portions, sprinkled with chopped pecans for a nice contrasting texture.

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Candied pumpkin will keep in the refrigerator for at least ten days, but it doesn’t freeze well, so serve it fresh and enjoy it while it lasts! Try to refrain from sticking your face into the bowl to slurp up every last drop of syrup—but I’ll understand if you can’t.

Posted by Chandler at 10:17 AM in Life, Sustainability  |  Permalink  |   Comments (4)
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December 06, 2009
Blueberry Sunday

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For months now we’ve been finding new ways to use our stores of dried, home-canned and preserved blueberries. But we almost forgot about the containers of fresh berries we threw in the freezer—and on this unseasonably cold* morning, whipping up a little reminder of summer seemed like a good idea.

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So the Tailor fired up the Cast-Iron Stovetop High-Collared No. 8 Griswold Waffle Iron™ (say that five times fast!), and we had ourselves a good old-fashioned hot breakfast—which, incidentally, goes great with the homemade blueberry syrup above, but the Tailor won’t share that recipe, I’m afraid.

No-Kiddin’ Waffles

2 ¼ cup flour
4 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
1 ½ Tbsp. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 ¼ cup whole milk
½ cup oil (we use Canola)

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt three times, then add the sugar. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten eggs, milk and oil. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. While some people like to make their batter ahead of time, we’re firm believers in using fresh-fresh-fresh batter. So for best results, make your waffles right then and there.

Oil your cast-iron waffle iron well before starting. Heat both sides of the iron thoroughly (the advantage of a high-collared iron like this is even heating and plenty of room to flip waffles), and remember to apply oil after every third or fourth waffle—a bristle brush is handy for this.

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Use a 1/2 cup measure to dip batter—one dip per waffle—and pour the batter into the center of the iron. When you close the lid, the batter will wick evenly into all the nooks and crannies.

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Cook the waffle for 3-4 minutes (peek occasionally to make sure your iron isn’t too hot!), flipping frequently—every thirty seconds or so. The best part (other than the flipping, that is)? Waffles are kind of like pizza—you can jazz them up however you like with your favorite breakfast condiments. But eat ‘em fast—a jazzed-up waffle will get cold and soggy** before too long.

That’s never a worry around here, though—these babies get gobbled up long before the next waffle is ready!

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* I know all you Minnesotans are rolling your eyes at this declaration, but a nighttime temperature of 17°F is enough to force us to rescue our squash colony from the attic, which isn’t insulated for “real” winter. So until the attic temperature stays above freezing, our pumpkins and butternuts are living in the spare bedroom like edible houseguests—definitely one of the less glamorous aspects of living seasonally.

** I’m really into the specific heat of foods. Mashed potatoes? High specific heat. Fresh waffles? Sadly low.

Posted by Chandler at 12:32 PM in Life, Sustainability  |  Permalink  |   Comments (5)
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