I’ve just posted a couple of international menus that I’ve cooked in the last couple of weeks:
My Comorian Menu features a typical fish stew, a roasted chicken with western and south Asian influences and some very basic but very good banana fritters.
My Champagnoise Menu includes an amazing leek tart and a Champagne version of coq au vin.
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I’ve been trying to be a little more thrifty on what I make for dinner, and part of that is using things I have at home – mostly leftover from other meals. Yesterday it was the turn of cream and bacon (both perishable). I also had leftover Parmessan cheese (from Christmas, it’s great that cheese lasts so long), so the logical thing to make was a Carbonara – even though I’d made one a couple of weeks ago.
This time I followed this recipe by Nigella Lawson (which I guess is a Food Network star – I don’t have cable so I don’t really know her). The recipe was quite good and Mika & Mika enjoyed it (though apparently Mika no longer likes bacon). I liked it too, but I didn’t think it was worth the calories. Still, I think it’s the carbonara recipe I’ve liked most so far.
I think the one I made before is this one. It was also quite good. But I think, perhaps, that no carbonara I could make would be worth its calories. Which is not to say I wouldn’t make it again, just not too often.
If you are wondering what to make for dinner or dessert on any given day, let this list of national food days inspire you:
http://www.tfdutch.com/foodh.htm
Today, for example, is Oatmeal-Nut Waffles Day.
Is this list real? Who knows? Who cares? (though being how idiotic our Congress is, it may very well be real). The point is that it gives you a reason to celebrate something yummy almost every day 🙂
I have just posted three new menus from my International Cooking project. They are:
–Auvergnat
Amazing food from this region in France. I didn’t cook it earlier because I hadn’t been able to find recipes.
–Colonial
Surprisingly modern food from colonial America
–Curaçao
A journey from Asia to Africa that is very Caribbean
In the next few weeks I’ll be working on Champenois, Comorian and Corsican recipes.
I hate, hate, hate, the Safeway on Bancroft Ave. in San Leandro. Everyday I walk by it when I go pick up my daughter in daycare – so it’s very convenient to stop there and buy the ingredients for dinner. But they NEVER have everything I need – and sometimes *anything* I need.
Today, for example, I was shopping for a leek tart I’m making tonight – but they had no chives. I was also shopping for a chicken dish I’m making on Wednesday – but they had no cut-up chicken (they had whole chickens, but the cut-up chickens were supposedly on sale). I don’t get it – why do they advertise products at a sale price, if they don’t carry them? And it’s not just that – try getting boneless chicken thighs, or lemongrass or even a cognac at an affordable price (all things I recently needed for cooking).
Part of me wishes the store would go out of business so I’d be forced to go to the other one, rather than be permanently frustrated by their lack of products.
Yesterday I made some cupcakes from this recipe (who the hell is Amy Sedaris, anyway?). Camila helped me. Perhaps for that reason the cupcakes just didn’t come out – they barely rose. Taste wise they were OK, not very sweet or special, just OK. I wouldn’t make them again. I really need a recipe for cupcakes that is fool-proof – where the measurements don’t need to be too exact for it to work, because God knows, I no longer get to measure anything.
Now, for the frosting I modified this recipe. I chose it specifically because it didn’t require as much powdered cream as the other one. I reduced it by 2/3 because I didn’t have that many cupcakes to frost, and still, there was too much frosting. My modified frosting was very good, in particular the second day. Here is the “recipe”
Buttercream frosting
- 6 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 5 Tbsp. butter, room temperature
- 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar.
Mix the cream cheese and butter together in an electric mixer until smooth. Add the powdered sugar, a little bit at a time, and mix until creamy.
A couple of years ago I asked for metal measuring cups & spoons for Christmas. Mike, my mom and a friend all heeded my call – I ended up with three sets. I decided to keep the one my mother gave me – because it had 3/4 and 2/3 cups in addition to the regular ones – and the one my friend Regina gave me – because it had more measuring spoons – and to return the one Mike got me. That was the most expensive one and he’d gotten it at Sur la Table.
Well, two years have passed and I haven’t returned them, so I thought I might as well start using them as well – not that I need 3 sets of measuring cups. It’s a good thing I didn’t put them to use before because they suck! The handles on the cups are so thin, that they easily bend! And I know that Mike spent a lot of $ on them (I think about $30).
I don’t see them in Sur la Table’s website now, so perhaps they stopped selling them. They are marked with the Sur la Table name, so if you see them in a store, avoid buying them.
Last night I had my monthly dinner with my friends Katrina & Parker (the rest couldn’t come), and we went to Ghazal Indian Cuisine in Oakland, California. As usual when I’m with the girls, we had great restaurant karma – not only did we find free parking very close to the restaurant, but we all enjoyed our meal.
Ghazal is a relatively new restaurant in the Jack London area. It’s front room is sort of generic, but its dining room is pretty nice – not in the least tacky. There is a wall with square recess shelves, decorated with nice ceramics. The room itself is too square and brightly lit for my taste – the light is too white. With a little more care it could have a very nice ambiance.
We were there on a Wednesday evening, and unfortunately (for them) the restaurant was almost empty – there was only one other party. I think the major reason is that the Jack London. Sq. area is a major dud, a complete failure of a project. It’s a nice place, but for some reason nobody seems to go there. If that was true during good economic times, it’ll be even truer with our current recession-depression.
In any case, Ghazal is a relatively nice place to go for dinner. It features a pretty much standard North Indian menu, thought there are more choices than at most similar restaurants. It’s also pricier than most Indian restaurants. That said, I still ordered what I always order: chicken pakora ($7), lamb korma ($12), kabuli naan (here it’s called kashmiri naan – $3) and two sweet lassis ($2.50 each).
The chicken pakora was quite nice, the chicken was quite moist, though the breading wasn’t very crispy. The portion was a good size. I also liked the lamb korma – the lamb was amazingly tender – but I thought the korma was lacking something. Perhaps some salt? The white rice that I ordered with it was yellow, but otherwise fine. Both dishes were pretty spicy, even though I’d ordered the lamb “mild”. The naan had a good amount of filling, and it was yummy and soft. The lassis, meanwhile, were delicious – perhaps a tad too sweet, but very refreshing and just nice.
Katrina and Parker shared several vegetarian dishes – I didn’t try them, but they said they were very good. In all, we were all happy to have dined there. As I said, we have good restaurant karma.
Ghazal Indian Cuisine
131 Broadway
Oakland, CA
510-268-9950
Today, Lotti and Vienna came over for tea (our fourth tea partner, Regina, has unfortunately moved to NY – we miss you Regina!). The house was a complete mess, so I spent much more time cleaning up than cooking – but I still wanted to have something yummy to go with the tea (that English breakfast tea I bought at Harrod’s in the London Airport). What I served were simple things:
–Chicken salad sandwiches
–Sugar Cookies
–Scones with butter & strawberry jam.
The only new recipe was that for the scones, and they were fairly easy to make and quite good. IT wasn’t the definitive recipe for scones, however, which is why I did not copy it here.
I’ve been looking for tea cups at Thrift Town, a great thrift store, and I’ve bought three so far. I hope I can find more 🙂
As I mentioned in a previous post, I received a few packages of Amazing Taste seasonings to try and review. Last night I made rotisserie chicken with the Malibu seasoning package. I rubbed it both under and over the skin of a full chicken, which I then cooked to perfection 🙂
I was not as fond of this seasoning mix as I was of the one for pork. The chicken was tasty, but I wasn’t completely fond of the taste. It had that sort of artificial flavor that store-bought rotisserie chickens have, maybe it was the preservatives in the spice mix. Mike thought it was pretty good, however.
I probably would not buy this seasoning.
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