If I cook like it's summer, will summer come?

Sunshine seems increasingly rare these days, and the past weekend was full of wind and rain. Yet, I had a 1/4 pound of cherries that needed a purpose. Since they weren't that sweet, I stewed the cherries with some vanilla sugar, a pinch of salt, bourbon, and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

I roughly mashed them after stewing, then folded them into vanilla ice cream batter. Since I was feeling lazy, I didn't commit to making a vanilla custard. Instead, with a nod to the Ben and Jerry's ice cream recipe book, I whipped a couple of eggs and added sugar, milk, and cream to the batter. It was simple and more airy than a custard based ice cream, but the drawback is that it isn't as rich (only 2 egg yolks versus the 4-6 I'd normally use) and is hard to scoop. Still, is there such a thing as bad ice cream, especially when served with bourbon whipped cream?

I'm almost finished with another cardigan (someone please stop me!) that I can post soon. But for now, I'll leave you with a picture of my afghan. I stated the afghan on 5/24/10, and as of today I have 85 rows complete. I'd love to have this complete by the end of summer, although with the way this summer is starting out,  I should try to finish this ASAP.

My Weekend in Food

Pantry and refrigerator destashing was this weekend's cooking theme. Since I was horrified at the quantity of produce I can throw out if a week doesn't go as planned (dinner cooked at home aborted due to long work days or nights out with friends), I was determined to not do any substantial food shopping until I used up what was perishable. It's just such a waste that all that produce ends up in the worm bin, compost bin, and garbage if I don't have a plan. "Use what I have" has become my mantra.

For me, this means making two small trips to the produce store instead of one trip at the beginning of the work week. I enjoy it, so it's not a chore, but it does require a bit of meal planning and scheduling. But, so far, this has led to less waste and some unexpected treats.

Pantry diving led to this salted caramel cinnamon ice cream, and it just may be my new favorite flavor (but I say this about almost every ice cream I create). I think I'll sprinkle some salt flakes or coarsely grind some Himalayan pink salt on top of my next serving to make it pop more.

I also found this steamed bread mix, an impulse purchase from Ranch 99. I didn't stuff the buns with anything, rather I made the whole batch and froze what we could not finish in a day or two. They came out more dense that I like, but perhaps that's the downfall of starting with a mix. I have no idea if the baking soda and baking powder were too old, which could explain part of it. Still, they were good enough to eat with some Korean BBQ chicken. And I'm sure it cost all of $1 to buy.

I also played with my pickle press some more, this time buying skinny Japanese cucumbers for a simple salt pickle. After I let the pickles sit for a day, I  packed them in white miso and put the whole concoction in the refrigerator. These pickles should be ready to eat in two months.

While I was busy making food and cleaning up around the house and yard, the boy was busy making some shelves for our bathroom and replacing older fixtures. I'll have to post pictures when he's done, because it looks amazing! He figured out how to match the finish of our table so we can start designing and making custom furniture for our place, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I may have to make him a hand knit sweater after all.

Kitchen Experiments and Dogs

Destashing my pantry led me to some more kitchen experiments. Experiment #1 is my kimchi. I didn't travel to the Korean grocery store in Oakland to get my Korean ground chilis. Instead, I decided to use some chile de arbol in the pantry, some dried shrimps, fish sauce, ginger, green onions (stem part only) and garlic. And of course, napa cabbage. (Organic napa cabbage will cost you your first child - I just reviewed the receipt I shoved into my purse. Scary, but at least everything else was hanging around my house.)

So far, the kimchi smells authentic, meaning that it's kind of stinky. The characteristic tang from the lactobacillus microbes hasn't set in, but according to the recipe, it I should taste the tang in a week or so.

I adapted the kimchi recipe from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. The book's a little hippy crunchy (Katz's friends tend to have one word names like "Nettle"), but what I like about it is that he isn't fussy and he cheers you on in your fermentation exploits. I had read and watched numerous videos on making kimchi, and it wasn't until I read his description that I just went for it.

Katz also had a cool trick: He uses a smaller pint jar full of water as a weight stone for the bigger quart sized jar. I didn't want to funkify my crock and I didn't want 7.5 liters of kimchi, so this was perfect! The quart jar easily fits one pound of wilted cabbage.


Another experiment was miso ice cream. I was sure I'd love it, but I had to make it to prove to other people that it would be as good as I imagined. Googling miso ice cream recipes came up with things like "10 most disgusting ice cream flavors," so that was no help. If you'd like to make miso ice cream yourself, I suggest you buy shiromiso, the mildest of the misos. For 3 cups of liquid, I only added 2 tablespoons of miso. I could've probably gotten away with 1 tablespoon, but I wanted an ice cream that was decidedly on the salty side. I also made the custard style of ice cream and I added the miso after I tempered the egg yolks and added them back to the mix.


I'm fading, so before I retire, here's a couple of dog pictures from a recent trip.