No jawbreakers, please

Victory Garden-to-be

February 26th, 2009

Yesterday my mom came over and helped me install a bunny-deterring fence around our veggie-patch-to-be. Very sweet of her. A good time, and Roy and Leo  were the only way they could be: completely troll-like, but I mean that in a hilarious way. They created endless games out of the metal wire fencing rolls- it looked like barbed wire Olympics from afar, I’m sure. It wasn’t barbed wire, but I kept saying, Don’t poke your eyes out! Don’t get hurt!  And they just kept laughing and rolling around, making boot camp-like tunnels and “traps” for each other. It was satisfactory entertainment for my mom and me while we did the hard manual labor. Buddy did his best to help, too.

The boys also picked a bunch of weeds and set them out for the rabbits to munch on, taking pity on them for being excluded from our Victory Garden. A generous gesture.

I don’t know if I want to call it a Victory Garden. Maybe Home Sweet Home Garden? I know- that’s a bit cloying, isn’t it?

Troll Garden.

Veggies and Trolls Garden.

Gobbling Garden.

Goblin Garden.

Garden of Misfit Toys.

Sprouts and Spooks Garden.

Dig for Dollars Garden.

No Gnomes Allowed Garden. I’m sorry- that’s really awful.

Rabbit Stew Garden.

Mr. McGregor’s Garden.

I’m done.

But lists are such fun.

Mr. McGregor used to scare me silly. You know, Mr. McGregor from Peter Rabbit. There was something just so menacing about him in Beatrix Potter’s illustration. Sheer genius, Ms. Potter was, that’s all I can say.

Summer baking

July 26th, 2008

Yup, it’s true, I’ve been baking. We seem to have a pattern of cool mornings, somewhat humid afternoons and cool evenings. We really can’t complain, considering there have been some Julys when I’d wished I’d pre-ordered the cool head bands for all of us to get us through the summer. I don’t mean cool as in “Whoa, Dude- you are too cool!” I mean cool as in put it in the freezer first and then wear it, kind of like what the guys in Iraq have to wear. But anyway, we just haven’t needed it this summer. Shhh… I don’t want to jinx it!

Peanut Butter Cookie Bars

I dusted off my copy of “Rosies Bakery All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No-Holds-Barred Baking Book” and made a batch of the Peanut Butter Cookie dough, but decided I’d take the lazy way out and just mush it onto the deep cookie sheet I have (lined with parchment), making bars out of it. Come to find out that it’s more effort than I thought to massage cookie dough all the way to the far corners of a cookie sheet. I don’t have a rolling pin. But I just tried to meditate my way through it and it eventually happened; this was my activity while watching an episode of The Love Boat on Fancast with John. Wow, those were the days… I hear that jingle and I’m instantly transported to the late 70s. How old was I then? About 9 or 10. The Love Boat was the height of glamour to me then, and it’s so wonderfully cheesy to watch it now.

The best part of the bars were the corner pieces- they were more cookie-like, and crunchier. But these were good because they weren’t overly sweet.  I used natural peanut butter, no sugar added.

Peanut Butter Chocolate-Chip Bars (also from Rosie’s)

Why so much peanut butter? Because we’re trying to use up the last of the school-time peanut butter. We bought a lot when it was on sale at Windmill Farms and the use-by date is approaching.

I’m partial to these bars, if given a choice between the two. The chocolate gives it that extra oomph. And instead of chocolate chips, I chopped up a big bar of bittersweet chocolate.

I wanted to make a peach pie out of some of the peaches my mom and Bill gave us from their tree. But John begged me not to; he said they are just so good to simply eat them. They don’t last long here! And my mom just brought over some nectarines; they were gone within minutes. Other treat this summer have been my parents’ homegrown grapes and tomatoes. Our neighborly greenthumbs; it’s truly glorious what B & B (Barbara & Bill) are able to grow. All kinds of guavas, bigger-than-softball cherimoyas, plums, blood oranges, kumquats, apples, persimmons, squash, I could go on :) but anyway…- Oh, and my mom is determined to grow a successful avocado; she has a few young ones settling in now, looking good.

CSA News

John, Roy & Leo picked up our first Community Supported Agriculture  box (Garden of Eden Organics) last Thursday (2 days ago). Included were huge peaches, a lot of blueberries, dates (SO YUMMY!), a bunch of purple carrots, a Persian cucumber, a generous batch of gourmet lettuce mix, 2 huge onions, green beans, cilantro, tomatillos, jalapeno-type peppers and 2 soft-ball size Reed avocados. And all organic!

Hmm… now that I read the list, it does sound like a good quantity for about $40, but I must admit that when I first saw the box it seemed just a bit meager. I guess because we’re used to buying on-sale produce at Windmill Farms, and we get a LOT more there for $40. But, sigh, we haven’t generally been buying organic and it’s often not local either. And we want to do what we can to support the local farms, goodness knows it makes sense to do so.

I also need to add that for many families, the quantity in the box is probably plentiful. We just happen to be produce fiends. Actually, we’re kind of like produce vampires; we maul our way through vast quantities of produce every week. And if we don’t get enough of a produce fix we get kind of weak and pale and depleted-feeling. When Grammy comes to visit she is (I’m not exaggerating this time) taken ABACK- STUNNED- by how much produce we eat. So I venture to say we’re on the abnormal side as far as how big our CSA box would have to be to truly feel sated. 

Anyway, we’ll see how the boxes go for the next month and then we might make a comparison shop at the local farmer’s market- take $40 and see what we can buy at the organic suppliers there. But what we’ve eaten has been delicious, and we are pleased that so much fruit is included, unlike some other CSAs.

Roasted Salsa

Happily, though, John did make a fantastic salsa with our CSA ingredients. He roasted the peppers, tomatillos and onions, added some tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and pulsed it all together in the little chopper (also from Jen’s garage sale) and voila! Oh my God, it was just hard to stop eating that stuff. We gave a batch to our dear neighbors/parents/grandparents B&B also. Somehow in all the excitement we forgot to add the cilantro. But mmm… nice bite to it, and the roasted flavor was so roasted-y. It really adds a different dimension to salsa. We drowned our quesadillas with it. 

Onward and happy munching!

Garden

But before I log off I want to add that I actually got out and machete’d my way through some of the jungle in our yard this morning, just to show myself that I wouldn’t fall through a wormhole of disbelief from clearing some vegetation. I’m trying not to succumb to feeling overwhelmed by my plans for the garden. I had all these elaborate ideas- I’ll make an archway out of sturdy branches and twigs; I’ll create a labyrinthe garden with all kinds of herbs and vegetables thriving in beautiful, loamy, compost-amended soil; oh yeah,  and we’ll have an entire community of funky birdfeeders hanging from the trees, too. Can’t you just see it? But the problem is, the twiggy arch is a fire hazard, at least if I place it right next to the patio. Maybe I’ll figure out a different place for one… And the other thing is that our dear Buddy, Terrier-Chupacabra mix that he is, eats anything and everything. And he chases all birds away too. (Good for fruit trees, but kind of cruel and anxiety-provoking for the poor bird feeder visitors) What to do… maybe cayenne sprinkled around the tender young veggie plot? I don’t know. Anyway, so far these are all just ideas running around in my mind.

I plan to soak the proposed area for the plot before we go camping (it’s hard, dry remnant lawn right now), and put a layer of newspaper, then a layer of compost, then another layer of newspaper, and soak it again and hold it down with rocks. That way it will do its work while we’re away and then I’ll see how it’s doing when we get back. I’d like to plant in the fall. Any thoughts, Garden Angel (Mom)?

Windchimes to you!

News from the Kuraoka Kitchen

July 22, 2008

As Willie Wonka once said, “So little to do and so much time… Reverse that!”

Well, let’s see…

Tortilla Casserole (Foodgeeks.com by Jocelyn Craft) was delicious! One of my favorite things- the aroma of onions, tomatoes and garlic cooking in olive oil. I could bathe in it! Don’t worry, I won’t- but I could!

I used store-bought meatloaf instead of plain ground beef, which added a lot of flavor (sodium too, I’m sure, but I used low-sodium beans and no-salt- added canned tomatoes). This would be a good one to make extra and freeze, but we ate all of ours. I did make extra for Stefani who recently gave birth to twins.

Grilled tomato & cheese (Family Circle Aug. 2008)

We LOVE grilled cheese sandwiches here- my car even has a bumper sticker, “Visualize grilled cheese… Anyway, this recipe is amazing because it takes the coziness of grilled cheese to a mouthwatering nirvana. All you do is add fresh tomatoes and a bunch of basil leaves to the pile of grated cheese and then instead of butter, I brushed the top of the bread with olive oil. You smush it all down with the spatula and let it sizzle, and then try to resist picking it up and letting the molten cheese burn your mouth- you have to wait (oh no!) a few minutes to let it cool a bit.

Pasta Casserole (Cooks.com)

Speaking of all things cheesy, I couldn’t resist trying this pasta casserole recipe when delivering meals to our new mom-of-twins friend (she’s by no means a new mom- she has two young children as well :O). I would have made the homemade macaroni & cheese recipe that I’ve made before (don’t be shocked- I have been known to follow the occasional recipe every once and again), from the well-worn recipe clip taped inside our Great Meals on a Tight Budget (Family Circle Cookbook), which is the best mac&cheese ever - and sadly we don’t know who created that recipe- but it was a hot day and I just didn’t have it in me to go whole hog. So, though it’s the first time we’ve ever bought a can of Cheddar Cheese Soup, the Pasta Casserole recipe called for it and I just decided What the heck? Why not try it, it’s not like we ladle Cheddar Cheese Soup over our salads every day- it can’t be that bad to throw it into a recipe once in a howling moon.

Instead of tomato juice, I used a can of tomatoes. I used our swanky new Toastmaster stick blender to smooth the tomatoes into the sauce. (I should say the stick blender is new to us- I got it at Jen’s garage sale; we love this thing!) End result: tasty! The tomates and the soup give it a bit of an odd pink color before it’s baked, but after baking it’s beautifully golden with those irresistible crisp noodle tops. I do prefer the homemade mac & cheese, but in a pinch this is good.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup (The New Laurel’s Kitchen)

Why am I making soup in the middle of summer, you ask? Well, remarkably, it hasn’t been that hot for some reason, but mainly, I needed a quick way to use the cauliflower and broccoli we had.

This was the perfect antidote to a post-birthday-party weekend. Leo’s skeleton pirate birthday party at the beach included a feast of Subway sandwiches, pasta salad, rice salad, potato chips and Cheetos. It left me craving heaping servings of veggies. So anyway, I threw in broccoli as well, and it turned out great. It’s mild, but I added curry powder to mine (no one else wanted to though), which gave it added oomph.

And the creamy-ness came from potatoes, not cream.

The reason I was in a bit of a hurry to make room in our refrigerator is that we’re picking up our first box of produce from Garden of Eden Organics’ Community Supported Agriculture this Thursday. We’re excited!

Drumroll… Sewing News!

John’s mom, Frances, was here over the weekend. As serendipity would have it, I had procured my mom’s sewing machine a few days before. So, being the sewing goddess that she is, Frances, aka Grammy, was delighted to help me conquer my fear of the quick-needled machine. With her guidance, I cut off a pair of Leo’s favorite pants - the ones with the airplanes and parachutists-and hemmed them into shorts! And then we tag-teamed a really wide tank shirt of mine; she did one side and I did the other. And then another tank with the same problem! And then I got really adventurous; I said, “This one has a grease stain on it; maybe I could applique something on it…” She said, “Sure, why not?” So I cut one of the orange airplanes and a parachutist from the cut-off material of Leo’s pants and appliqued it onto the shirt… with the sewing machine! Time was, I would get an idea like that and cut out the things and then earnestly hand-sew them on, bit by bit over the next month. But not that day- voila! Done in minutes! No wonder folks like this machine. I get it now!

But we didn’t stop there, no sir! Our duvet had a huge rip in the foot end. We’ve been thinking about buying a new one, waiting for a sale. But Sweet Li’l Sewing Machine to the rescue… I swear, it was all sewn up in a matter of 15 minutes, maximum!

By then all my nervousness was gone- I was getting a little charge out of the whole thing by then, even. The mystery was gone! Roy was rather stunned to look up and see me there, foot pedal to the metal, needle whirring away. Then he said he wanted to try it! So he did, on a little scrap of fabric, he tried a few different stitches, ones I hadn’t tried yet. And no fear at all! He liked the whole machine aspect of it, the way the components all start moving and working together to get the stitches on the fabric. 

Kudos to my friend Juliet and her friend Debbie, who sparked some inspiration for me with their talk of Debbie’s quilting and Juliet’s lovely bags. Juliet quilts also though; she showed me one of her fantastic, cozy-feeling quilts- it had a wave motif if I remember right- as she, Debbie and I waited for our kids at swim class. Debbie also brought her darling hearts-in-envelopes quilt.

My goal now is to tackle the baby quilt I made for Roy- 8 years ago!! Sigh. It just needs to be quilted now. I say “just.” Yeah, right. Well, after talking it over with Grammy, I’ve determined that it’s best just to finish it by hand, since the whole thing is hand-sewn so far, and it would just kind of feel off to finish it by machine. So I’m going to finish it with ties, and then hand-sew the binding… We’ll see.

I also wanted to mention, in light of maiden voyage, first-time attempts, hats off to Juliet for making her first batch of jam! Strawberry! She used self-sealing jars so she didn’t have to deal with wax.

So, I guess I need to stop for now. I’m going to try to update more frequently and less massively…

I’ve been craving carrot raisin muffins. And more juice from the Juiceman Jr. (also from Jen’s garage sale :))

Rock’n’roll daisies to you!

Pork Tenderloin Roast and Apricot Sauce

Most of us, by the time we reach our 40s are comfortable cooking meat- I mean, come on, most of us have been cooking meat for at least 15-20 years. Well, I’m one of the few who have not been cooking meat for that long. And I haven’t recently renounced vegetarianism; as much as I love veggies, I’ve always been a carnivore- an omnivore. I just get a bit frazzled by all that can go wrong when you cook meat, it’s always given me an inner spasm of anxiety, so I’ve avoided it as often as I can. For the past 10 years I’ve cooked meat only on a handful of occasions; mainly, I’ve left the meat cooking to John, figuring he’s so at ease with the meat arena, why bother? He cooks the meat and I throw together a big heaping salad- that’s just where my comfort zone in the kitchen has been.

But now that salmonella and e-coli are regularly popping up in Vegetable Land as well, I figure, well, all bets are off; I might as well venture into the land of meat. So here I am, braving my little wobbly-kneed raw meat fear. And I have to say, it’s liberating! Last night I dug through my box of main dish clippings and saw “Turkey Tenderloins and Apricot Sauce,” from the June 2008 issue of Woman’s Day, and I thought, “I bet that would be good with the pork loin roast we have in the freezer.” So instead of asking John to make it, by gum I just rolled up my sleeves and got busy. I decided that as long as our meat thermometer is working, what’s the big deal anyway? I mean honestly, the likelihood of a car accident is way higher than some nebulous kind of meat accident. No problem! Just call me Ms. Raw Meat.

After letting it thaw in the fridge overnight it was still pretty frozen, so I did a slow cook at 250 for a couple of hours, on John’s recommend, so the outside wouldn’t burn while it was getting up to temperature. And I had so much fun mixing up the apricot sauce. I used the last of our Safeway Select Apricot Jam, and then opened the Trader Joe’s Apricot-Orange Fruit Spread we had in the pantry. The garlic, mustard and soy-sauce (reduced sodium) with the jam smelled so good I could have just stood there at the counter and sipped it with a spoon… I didn’t, but I could have.

So there I was, basting the pork loin with this angelic sauce every now and then over a couple of hours of slow cooking. It was great- I was even wearing an apron. I felt like Nigella Lawson.

The only reason I was able to have the oven on for a couple of hours on a summer day in San Diego is that we’ve had a wonderful cool snap. It’s been around 75 degrees for the past couple of days.

Anyway, the pork turned out so yummy! And it was so easy, I’ll definitely be making it again. And John did the veggies (broccoli and carrots) and rice- a combination of brown and jasmine, mmmm!

Day One Clafouti

This is a renaissance summer. Or maybe I’m simply entering a renaissance phase of life, more specifically a beginner’s phase. I’m 40 years old and I’m ready to be a beginner again. And again.

My husband John is the primary cook in our family. I sometimes make salads or other veggie mish-mash or pancakes or cereal, but that’s about the extent of my kitchening. We have two sons, Roy, 8, and Leo, almost 6, and they always look up with surprise when I approach the stove.

So today I began my journey into cooking. I will use this space to share how things are going on this journey. I will also be getting into the garden more often, and report any garden musings here. My mother has a natural green thumb and I’ve tried to learn by osmosis from her, but I admit my garden often suffers from neglect.

And the third aspect of this log will be devoted to any attempts at crafts or sewing (anyone who knows me is gasping with the shock of my mention of sewing). But I’m determined to conquer my fear of the sewing machine during this beginner’s phase.

So, that’s the plan. My husband and I are both freelance writers. My writing self is very connected to my tactile self, so I cannot imagine venturing into this renaissance chapter without writing about it… Here we go!

This morning I dipped into my box of dessert recipes and decided to make Peach-Raspberry Clafouti, a Martha Stewart recipe. Why do I have a box of dessert recipes if I don’t cook? Well, the thing is, I adore reading about food and looking at beautiful pictures of food, so I’ve been clipping recipes for years. It borders on an obsession; if I see a delicious-looking recipe, I have to clip it. The list of ingredients, the mixing methodology, the prep process, all of it speaks to me on a primal level.

So now I give myself permission to go forth and create! John is gracious and encouraging about the whole thing, thank goodness.

The thing is, we are going next door to my parents’ house this afternoon for Kaffee Trinken (German coffee hour), and my mom has Celiac. So she can’t eat any gluten, which means no regular flour. I will substitute regular flour for rice flour combined with arrowroot powder. John ran out to get the rice flour and we had some arrowroot powder on hand, by some miracle.

I Googled gluten-free flour subsitute and saw that you get nice results by adding a bit of tapioca flour to the mix. We had some large pearl tapioca on hand so I thought, What the heck? I added a tablespoon or so to the rice flour and amaranth.

Also, we didn’t have peaches and raspberries so I used plums from my parents’ tree and frozen blueberries instead.

I followed the recipe and all went well until I pulled it out of the oven. I discovered that the tapioca pearls were still hard as pearls. Literally. Tooth-breaking hard. So I had to pick out about a hundred of these pearls, which hopefully had all floated to the top. I will have to announce a warning to chew very carefully…

Hopefully it will be as good as it looks though! The plums smelled so good as they were simmering. Oh, and I used Japanese Mirin cooking wine instead of white wine also. We’ll see… I’ll report back!