My Food Geek

Some foodgeek math for you:

Peanuts + popped popcorn + buttery caramel = crackerjackjef.
Divide the whole equation by 2 foodgeeks, you get zero.

I whipped up this quick batch of caramel corn with the intentions of having snacks for a few days, boy was I mistaken. You may as well just call this stuff crack, it’s that addictive. Five cups of popcorn slathered with caramel lasted a little under 12 hours I think, and that is only because I exercised restraint (and had to sleep a little bit).

The recipe, oddly enough, came from Making Artisan Chocolates. This recipe was marked easy, and it showed; the whole recipe took about as long as it took to pop the popcorn. I skipped the final chocolate step, piping thin chocolate stripes on the finished caramel corn, but it wasn’t missed. I think the book just added chocolate to stay on topic, but who knows, it could have been a welcome addition.

I don’t quite feel right about posting the recipe straight from the book. This book has more than enough good recipes in it to warrant the purchase and it’s cheap, too! (see above)

Lately, we’ve been a little behind eating our vegetables. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming having vegetables delivered to your house every Wednesday, whether you need them or not.
Here’s a little something I dug out of The Greens Cookbook that uses many of the vegetables that we’ve been stockpiling these days.

My main goal was to find a recipe that would use up the large bunch of chard I had sitting in the refrigerator from last week. I grabbed this veggie-centric cookbook and hoped for the best. Apparently some eater already got to this book and marked several recipes with post-it notes, this recipe being one of them. I think the note read something like, “Yummy! I want to eat this!” or something like that.

I quickly read the recipe and found that I had just about everything on hand except for the buckwheat linguine that the recipe suggested. I made the decision to make homemade egg pasta with white flour as a substitute; in the end it all worked out. If you do happen to have some fresh pasta on hand, this recipe would make for a nice quick and light dinner.

Linguine with french lentils carrots and chard
(Adapted from The Greens Cookbook)
2-3 carrots finely diced
6 leeks finely diced
1 bunch of chard chiffonard
3 cloves garlic

1 cup lentils picked over
2 bay leaves

1 lb fresh pasta
Shaved pecorino Romano cheese
Salt, pepper, olive oil

Place lentils, bay leaves, and 4 cups of water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until lentils are tender but not falling apart. Drain immediately and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Remove bay leaves.

Bring a large 6qt pot of water to a boil. (for the pasta)

In a large skillet saute leeks, carrots, and garlic until softened. Add the lentils, chard, and about one cup of water and lower heat to a simmer. Cook for about five minutes or until the chard is just wilted.

When the vegetables are almost done, cook pasta. Fresh pasta only takes about two to three minutes to fully cook. Drain pasta and add it to the vegetables along with several tablespoons of olive oil. Adjust seasoning and simmer for one minute to blend flavors.

Immediately turn out onto a serving dish and top with freshly shaved Romano cheese.

It has been a slow few weeks here at the foodgeek household. The CSA seems to be sending out the last of the winter vegetables, I’m making the same old food as always, and I’ve been slacking off on posting. I’m pretty sure this is all normal foodblogging news as it happens to the best of you out there.

To spark my interest, I bought a few goodies. Last week I got a huge box in the mail. In the box was my new Cuisinart ICE-50BC ice cream maker. This is a pretty big upgrade over my last machine, the ICE-20. The ICE-50BC doesn’t require prefreezing of the work bowl and can crank out batch after batch of ice cream. I’ve tested out the machine with a few flavors: matcha, hazelnut praline, and David Leibovitz’s roasted banana.

That brings me to yet another purchase, The Perfect Scoop. I figured I should support a fellow foodblogger since I would hope people would support me, too. The book is far better than I hoped and has all sorts of new recipes I’m eager to try out.

Switching gears, I purchased a large supply of chocolate from Chocosphere, 22lbs to be exact. I was tired of running over to Whole Foods and picking up their overprices block pieces, so I pulled the trigger on a chocolate stash of my own. In the almost as huge box as the ICE-50BC was a 10lb block of E.Guittard 35% milk chocolate, a 10lb block of E.Guittard High Sierra white chocolate, a 2lb block of Dagoba 35% organic milk chocolate, and a 2lb bag of Dagoba organic cocoa butter. This should hold me over for the better part of the year unless I go on a serious chocolate bender.

I bought one last thing to go along with all that chocolate, Andrew Shotts’ Making Artisan Chocolates. I’ve been looking for a quality candy book and I think this one fits the bill. Truffles, hand-dipped chocolates, and molded chocolates are the majority of the book. Shotts doesn’t go overboard on techniques and doesn’t stray too far from the topics at hand. The recipes are all rated by difficulty, which is a big help when you’re trying out something unfamiliar. I’ve already tackled a few recipes and hope to share a few of them with you soon.

Finally, I’d like to apologize to the UPS man. Thanks for hauling all that loot to my second story condo. If I have any goodies the next time you arrive, I’ll be sure to offer you some.

It’s been a slow week at the foodgeek household. We’ve been getting the same old veggies from the CSA and I’ve been slacking off in the interesting food department. For a change, I decided to make something fancy for Monday’s dinner: Beet Tartare. I’m definitely not much of a beef person, never mind raw beef, so this dish isn’t all that scary. I served the tartare on fried radicchio risotto and topped the whole thing off with some wilted garlicky arugula.

I have to be honest here, when I decided on this dish, I had no idea how it would turn out. Sure I know the risotto would be good, the roasted beets would be sweet, and the arugula peppery, but I had no idea how they would get along on the plate. I gathered up all the parts of the recipe, roasted the beets, fried the risotto, wilted the greens, and then just plated it all up, restaurant style. I handed the plate to the eater and used my plate to take photos. I quickly took the photos and walked over to ask how the dish was, and the eater’s plate was empty. While the portion was rather small, I was surprised to see how fast it disappeared. With my first bite, I declared this dish was actually a success, who would have guessed?

I don’t really have a recipe for this sort of dish; I just made it up on the fly. If you guys would like a formal recipe, let me know in the comments and I’ll try and hammer one out.

The other day I was reading about someone who was tired of their winter vegetables. She was saying something about San Diego’s winter vegetables being tired and pale. I can’t think of anything that is further from the truth. Just last week I got crisp cauliflower, yukon gold potatoes, and the greenest sugar snap peas I’ve seen all winter.

With all these delicious winter vegetables, I thought I’d put together my version of the Indian classic, Aloo Gobi. This recipe is pretty straight-forward, no fancy techniques, no fancy ingredients. You may even have all these boring ingredients in your pantry already.

Maia, thanks for the inspiration

Aloo Gobi

1 head cauliflower cut into small florets
2 cups sugar snap peas cut in half
5 potatoes
1 onion chopped
1/2 cup curry powder
1/2 cup oil
2 tablespoons butter
red pepper
salt and pepper

Boil potatoes, skin on, until fork-tender. Remove potatoes and rinse under cold water while peeling the skin off. Chop potatoes and reserve.

Blanch cauliflower in the potato water for 2-3 minutes. It should still be firm.

In a large, dry skillet toast the curry powder until fragent. Add the oil and saute the onions until translucent. Add cauliflower, potatoes, peas, and butter and stir continuosly until all the vegetables are coated with the curried oil.

Cook for 1-2 more minutes. Season with red pepper and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with steamed long-grain rice.