Archive for June, 2009

The day I decided to start my herb garden I found a box of children’s plastic yard, garden, or beach toys next to the recycle bin.  I looked at them and decided  that it would be fun to use the toys as ‘pots’ for growing my plants.  So I took them back to the apartment and made holes in the bottom of them for water drainage like a proper planting pot.

I originally bought 2 pots and a rectangle planter with a bag of organic potting soil.  But now I have a wheelbarrow, a ship, a bucket, and a small plastic garden watering toy.

So to make a long story short I planted mint in the ship by itself because supposedly I got to watch out for that thing going wild.  The rosemary has the same problem, growing out of control.  But I decided to plant it with garlic chives and Italian flat leaf parsley in the wheelbarrow.  And in my rectangle planter I have (from left to right) basil, cilantro, lemon thyme, and Greek oregano.  Now according to the ‘instructions/direction’ of the herb plant cards they all like direct sunlight.

This is the part that if you didn’t find my children’s toy planters funny, maybe you will find the next bit funny.

Remember me saying I don’t particularly have a ‘green thumb’?  At all?  Yeah, so now the sun has been literally cooking some of my herbs in the pot, and no, that’s not a food cooking pot.  Although there has got to be all kinds of puns in that last sentence.  I didn’t want to show the updated pictures till I have more time to redeem my plants so the pictures on this page is when I first got everything started.  It now looks like my mint, cilantro, and half of the lemon thyme was cooked till the herbs dried out or got crispy on the vine!

And remember the BLT contest due by the end of August 28th? The other two pots (that are not shown in the picture) are the ones I started my heirloom tomatoes and lettuce in…haven’t seen them yet.  Its not looking good for me to be a contestant in the competition, but we’ll see what happens.  I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.

Enjoy my pictures and enjoy a few laughs at my expense…I don’t mind.  I am laughing myself!

Recently I tried my own Dutch Crunch as I have had it several times and love it in ‘loaf’ and roll form for straight consumption or to build a massive sandwich!  What is it? You may ask…

The following quote is credited to Bacon Press , (as I try to keep it short and sweet here on my site for you) I find this paragraph to sum up its origin. ->

Like your typical sourdough loaf or baguette, Dutch Crunch didn’t originate here, although the name probably did. In the Netherlands, it’s known as Tijgerbrood and sold in the UK as “Tigerbread”. It gets its name from the color and texture of the crust, which is striped with dark brown crunchy spots with light blond bread peaking out from underneath. The crust gets its flavor and texture from washing the top prior to baking with a mixture rice flour, butter, yeast, sugar, and salt. The final product is a mildly sweet, light and fluffy white loaf with a somewhat crunchy, savory crust. ~ Bacon Press

In addition I find that Dutch Crunch Bread is a ‘bay area’ California thing and does not reach far out of this area…as in its prevalent in all our grocery stores and bakeries.  Supposedly the name originated from San Francisco when the bakeries there started making it.

My attempt (which I will show in a picture or two) to make it I did produce a good tasting product, BUT I found two mistakes in my own rendition:

1. I made my dough to soft and I was not using a baguette pan, so my bread was a little ‘flatter’ in shape than I wanted. (but that’s my own perfectionism kicking in)
2. After looking at several recipes I was led to believe I needed to coat the top of my dough with a much thicker coating than I believe was necessary for the ‘Crunch’ effect and taste.

I used my own Easy White Dough recipe and went HERE for the topping recipe.

*I researched Dutch Crunch Bread only to find most information about it was not referenced or researched extensively, so for that I apologize in advance to my Dutchy friends if you find me in error!

Here on my site and on Facebook I posted my findings from my first ‘Farm Fresh to You‘ home delivery organic food box.  Which was noted as having at least ten bunches of Basil in it!

Well of course even I could not use that up without getting sick of it!  So I cut the stems off and processed all the basil down with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a few heads of garlic.  Then I scooped the mixture into a Ziploc bag and cut the corner off.  I piped the whole bag into two ice cube trays and put them in the freezer for future use!

I would have made pesto but I don’t like what the freezer does to cheese (Parmesan) and nuts (pine nuts, or in my case I like to use roasted sunflower kernels, their cheaper too!) which are both ingredients of pesto.

Later when you want to cook something with a little garlic and basil ‘zip’ you just throw in a cube or two while cooking or sauteing.  They also use this ice cube trick with stock (chicken, beef, pork…) too, so if you are only cooking in small amounts you can throw a few frozen ’stock’ cubes into the pan or food to melt down and help flavor.

[pics below are after freezing]

Over at Stumptown Savoury, Gareth has an excellent blog that I enjoy.  He also has a post about making ricotta cheese at home, which is great because I can share it with you! (without having to write about it again myself)

I have tested doing it the way he says and it came out as good as his pictures show.  Here is the link  Home Creamery: Whole Milk Ricotta .  Come on people, it has four ingredients: Milk, Heavy Cream, Citric Acid, & Salt!

What can you make with Ricotta?  Lasagna, Manicotti, desserts…Gareth has already listed two more ideas on his site to go with his ricotta recipe. (just click Stumptown Savoury above)

Also there is a link on his site for ordering citric acid which is one of the ingredients…But if you don’t want to wait maybe this will do the trick for you:

I have had great success in finding Sour Salt (brand ROKEACH) in the Kosher section of Safeway food stores. Sour Salt IS citric acid, check the ingredients there is only one – citric acid.

About 5 1/2 ounces for $2.19 – plenty of cheese making citric acid.

Anybody out there had Chorizo before?  Well for those of you who have and know what I am talking about, you can buy a packet of seasoning called Chorizo Seasoning/Spices.  Usually on the ‘quick pick’ rack of various seasonings not on the spice aisle in your grocery store, but on the international or ethnic aisle.  In the Hispanic/Spanish section – usually right next to the severely limited ‘Asian’ section – in one of those 99 cents bags.

So an idea came to me to use it with some ground pork for meatballs.  My wife is allergic to beef so I use different meats to create meatballs when we get the urge for a good meatball sandwich, with spaghetti, or some other kind of way.

Basically for one pound of ground pork I used 1 Tablespoon Chorizo Seasoning, 1 teaspoon smoke powder, salt & pepper, a few bread crumbs and fennel seed I had toasted then ground.

(next time I would add a minced shallot!)

I cooked my meatballs on top of the stove browning them nicely then finishing them in a 350 degree oven.  Sauteing some thick sliced ‘baby bella’ mushrooms and adding in a quick marinara (combined in processor) with fire roasted tomatoes, a little tomato paste, garlic, and roasted red bell peppers…Later adding only oregano, salt, and pepper.  Then later

adding the meatballs back into the sauce.

We had the meatballs and sauce over farfalle (bowtie) pasta.  I served a basil and sundried tomato dip (basil also curteousy of the box) made with cream cheese with the fresh carrots

and broccoli from the ‘Farm Fresh to You‘ box.

My box arrived today from Farm Fresh To You.  I got the ’small fast fruit & veg box’ so called for fruits and vegetables that don’t need to be cooked, but can be.  I just picked this one because I liked what was in the box.  And everything is certified organic.

When I ordered it (bi-weekly and everything changes as things are available) I wanted one more thing that was not listed, the Basil.  So I emailed and asked about it, they wrote me back and said it would be an additional 5 dollars and it would be 10 bundles…I was thinking that maybe it was a typo or maybe the bundles were small.  Also, I didn’t have a problem with the 5 dollar addition because you pay about 3 dollars for the limited basil you get in the grocery store.  BUT as you will see, it was indeed 10 bundles of Basil! WOW!

I’ll need to distribute some among my friends.  I am sure they won’t mind my misfortune of not being able to use it all before going ‘bad’.  Who needs some Basil?