sprinklefingers

I had completely forgotten about popcorn. 

Two weeks ago I was sorting through some of the (limitless) stuff in my office (the majority of it cooking/catering related) I found a never-before-opened-new-in-the-box popcorn maker! I had apparently purchased it, tucked it away and promptly forgotten about it. The receipt craftily tapped to the top of the box told me that I had done so approximately three (!!) years ago. What the?

Anyways, I busted the machine out of the box and noted that it wasn’t an air popper (honestly, it was like I had never seen the thing before. I literally have zero recollection of buying it,) but instead it’s the type that you pour a spot of oil into a pan and then add the popping corn and then a tiny arm stirs it all up and then it starts popping. (Yes, I realize I’m describing this device as if popcorn making is a second language. But to tell you the truth to me it kind of is.)

I went out immediately and bought popping corn. Then I came home and the kid and I made popcorn. I have to admit, making popcorn (not in the microwave!) with a kid is pretty satisfying. He told me himself that no matter how many times he sees popcorn pop open from a kernel to a fluffy cloud of yummy (his words, for real), he’ll never get tired of it. “It’s just like watching magic happen. Right in your face,” he said.

Since our first batch we’ve made a lot of popcorn. This past weekend we hosted a birthday dinner party for a dear friend of ours and the kid was on hors d’oeuvres duty. I told him he could think up any pre-dinner snacks he’d like and we’d make them together. His choices? Toasted brioche, peanut butter smeared on crackers topped with salt and (of course) popcorn. “But we’ve got to fancy-it-up a little bit mom. Let’s make it special.”

To me, nothing says fancy like truffle oil and good salt. So, armed with our popcorn popper, a bottle of oil and a bowl of salt, we produced the most delicious batch of fancy pants popcorn you could ever imagine. Rich and earthy because of the special oil and salty because we broke out our stash of fancy red clay salt from the land of Hawaii. See, fancy! I told you!

Truffle Oil Popcorn with Sea Salt
makes 6 quarts popped

You need:

• a device for popping corn - machine, stovetop, whatever.
• 2 large bowls
• 2/3 cup popping corn
• truffle oil (a small bottle will last you forever and you will be beside yourself with joy when you start adding truffle oil to your favorite foods.)
• fine sea salt

To make the popcorn:

1. Following the instructions for your particular machine (or on the stovetop in the smallest amount of oil,) pop the 2/3 cup of popcorn.
2. Once the popcorn is popped, divide it between the two large bowls and sprinkle each bowl of ‘corn with a small amount of truffle oil. Then sprinkle it with sea salt to taste. 
3. Dig in to the first bowl with your hands and lightly toss the popcorn over and over and over until the truffle oil is evenly dispersed. Repeat with second bowl. Taste. If either bowl needs more oil or salt, add it now.
4. Invert one bowl of popcorn over the other so that the popcorn slides in to one bowl. Next, place the empty bowl on top of the first bowl to make a lid. Gently shake the popcorn within the two bowls to ensure that the oil is distributed - that way each and every bite will be truffley and salty. Divine! 

Of course there are one million and one ways to fancy-up popcorn. From nutritional yeast to cinnamon ‘n sugar, the possibilities are seriously endless. But for now we’re sticking with fancy pants truffle oil popcorn because it goes so well with our two favorite beverages: apple juice (the kid) and champagne (me). Delicious.

in preparation for tomorrow’s post, i’m here now to give you a tip for peeling peaches! fantastic! (obviously if we’re talking peach-peeling today you should be looking forward to tomorrow!)

first, let’s talk about why we peel peaches in the first place:

of course for jams & preserves you want to peel peaches, right? right. the fuzzy-textured skins won’t break down & disappear into the jam. instead you’d be left with a jar of jam that’s most likely delicious, but is riddled with weird stringy bits of previously fuzzy skin. not good.

and if you’re using your peaches for a dessert that’s a bit more high-brown than, say, a slump/cobbler/crisp or buckle, you’ll most likely want to take the skin off. a rustic dessert like a cobbler can handle the skins, but poached peaches? a delicate tart? you just don’t like peach fuzz? take the skin off, please!

here’s how you do it:

1. set a large pot of water to boil.
2. wash your peaches.
3. in the bottom of each peach, cut a 2” X.
4. drop 2-3 peaches into the boiling water at a time. let float in the boiling water for approximately 60 to 90 seconds.
5. remove the peaches from the boiling water and let cool slightly. then, starting at the area where you made the X, slip the skins off the peaches. so easy!

ps: you can also de-skin tomatoes using this handy technique!

hi everyone!

oh. my. goodness! have i ever missed you.

remember that new bakery i was working on opening? well. good news! it’s open. we opened a week and two days ago, and i’m just now (finally) adjusting to my new schedule, my new home life and 12-14 hour work days.

overall it’s been fun. really fun. i’m working with great people. we’re creating delicious treats. and while cooking all day makes dinner prep feel a bit less like fun and more like work, i can’t imagine doing anything else right now.

one of my favorite items on our new menu? brioche tarts. one of my favorite toppings for a brioche tart? olive oil marinated tomatoes.

i arrived at the ‘recipe’ for the tomatoes the hard way: we ordered cherry tomatoes from a local produce purveyor. i didn’t anticipate that we’d get as many as we did. the only thing i could think to do with them all was preserve them in olive oil. with garlic. and herbs. and balsamic vinegar. can you say delicious? i sure can!

the best part of all of this is that i just so happened to have on hand some smoked olive oil. remember that sausage making class i attended a while back? at that class i met the nicest guy - who (as luck would have it) owns a smokehouse. since our meeting at the sausage class we have been experimenting with various components of my recipes - smoking things like flour and brown sugar (over alder wood!) to produce some incredible results. on one of his last smoked flour deliveries he also dropped off some smoked olive oil, and into the tomatoes it went!

you can produce delicious tomatoes without the smoked olive oil, certainly. but if you happen upon a bottle of it, i suggest you snatch it up! even a drizzle will make you swoon…honest!

olive oil marinated cherry tomatoes
makes 4+ pints

you need:

• 4 pints cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
• 2 cups best quality olive oil (smoked if you can get it)
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 t kosher salt
• 2 t pepper
• 2 t dried thyme
• 1 small bulb garlic, all cloves smashed and peeled, yet left as intact as possible
• lidded container that has room for the tomatoes but will also fit in your refrigerator

make the tomatoes:

1. in a bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and thyme.
2. place a layer of tomatoes into the lidded container then drop in a few cloves of garlic. pour a bit of the oil mixture over the top. continue layering the tomatoes, garlic and oil until you’ve used all of everything up.
3. place the lid on the container and store it in the fridge. the oil may harden, and that’s okay. it will melt into deliciousness in no time at room temperature.

now that you’ve got olive oil marinated tomatoes, you need something to do with them.
here are some ideas for your consideration:

• put them on pizza
• bake them into a tart
• mix them into eggs - scrambled? fritatta? your choice!
• use them as a salad topping
• make delicious pasta!
• mash them into a paste and use as a party spread - bruschetta anyone?

look! here are my tomatoes adorning a tart!

—-

it’s great to be back. see you tomorrow.

phew!

while the rest of the country seems to be settling into summer quite nicely, we here in oregon have experienced just one day at almost 80 degrees. and then, of course, the very next day it started raining again. i was making jokes with my husband that we ‘had a really nice summer’ and ‘wasn’t summer so much fun?’
all one day of it.

because the thermometer reached nearly 80, i made ice cream. and iced tea. we really do summer right around here!

the featured ingredient in both the ice cream and the tea? vanilla. tahitian vanilla, to be precise.

the ice cream consisted of the usual suspects - whole milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, vanilla bean - delicious.

the iced tea however was an orange & vanilla delight - it came out tasting something like a creamsicle - so good that i thought you should know about it:

orange & vanilla iced tea
makes 2 quarts

for the tea you need:

• 2 quart pitcher
• 4-cup glass measuring cup
• 8-10 (decaf) orange herbal tea bags
• water

make the tea:

1. place the tea bags in the 4-cup glass measuring cup. pour boiling water over the top - all the way to the top - at let steep 6-8 minutes.
2. fill the 2 quart pitcher half way with cold, cold water.
3. after the tea has steeped, remove the tea bags and add the tea to the cold water in the pitcher.
4. refrigerate.

now make the vanilla syrup:

you need:

• 2 (tahitian) vanilla beans, split open with seeds removed
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water

make the syrup:

1. bring the vanilla pods, their seeds, sugar & water to a boil in a small saucepan. let boil 3-4 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved. allow to cool to room temperature then remove the pods*.
2. place the cooled syrup in a small pitcher that’s able to be refrigerated. the syrup will hold in the ‘fridge for over a month.

it’s tea time:

when you’re ready to serve your tea, pour some tea over ice in a tall glass. stir in about one tablespoon of vanilla syrup per glass. admittedly i like mine sweeter than most, so i add a touch more. but here’s a suggestion: go light at first, taste it, and if you want it sweeter simply add a splash or two more.

my kid likes a bit of half & half added to his tea and syrup. then it’s really like creamsicle tea!

happy summer!

*the pods can be rinsed well, dried well and then added to sugar to make vanilla sugar! don’t just throw them away…and if you’re tempted to do so, mail them to me!

well. it’s been salad for dinner around here for far too long. even though i’m testing recipes at work and eating far too many baked goods concocted of brioche dough and extra butter, i’m still sick of salads when dinner rolls around.

[oh! dinner rolls! how i miss you!]

to combat all the greenery on the dinner table, i’ve made the one thing i know for certain isn’t a salad: breakfast for dinner. one of my favorite meals. of course i have trusted go-to pancake recipes, but this time i opted for a new recipe. for plain old buttermilk pancakes. no fruit, no flavorings - just buttermilk pancakes. (because adding fruit would be too salad-like. who’s with me?)

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i don’t really know when it first started or how i learned to do it, but i’ve always stored flour in my freezer.

most likely it started with whole wheat flour. whether i read it on a package of flour or learned it by watching food tv or reading a cookbook, i know that whole wheat flour - especially if you don’t go through it quickly enough - will go rancid. why? because whole wheat flour isn’t refined. it still contains the germ. once a package of whole wheat flour is opened, that germ can go rancid before you know it. freezing the flour arrests that development and allows you to keep whole wheat flour around for longer periods of time.

and then i started buying other types of flours to experiment with - barley, garbanzo flour, oat, millet, kamut. all of these luxury flours are stored in my freezer because there’s no possible way i’m going to go through them quickly enough. storing them in the freezer extends an otherwise rather short shelf life and allows me to add small amounts of these flours to my creations without the worry of using it all up before it goes bad.

here’s how i prepare my specialty flours for freezing:

• if the flour was originally packaged in a paper bag i pour the flour into a zip top bag and label it - including the date.
• i press the air out of the bag, then seal it.
• into the freezer the bag goes. when i need flour, i scoop it out, press the air out of the bag, reseal the bag and stick it back in the freezer. 
• i bake with the flour straightaway. it warms up to room temp pretty quickly.

some specialty flours are packaged in plastic bags. when that’s the case i simply take care when opening the bag so that i don’t rip it. i scoop out the flour i need, then i squeeze the air out of the bag, twist the top of the bag closed and clip it securely with a kitchen (or office binder) clip. i jot the date on the bag and into the freezer it goes.

of course all of this freezing flour is easy for me because i have an extra freezer. it’s generally free from food odors and is my most valuable kitchen appliance. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: an extra freezer is a kitchen’s best friend. a very cold best friend.

still there are two flours i go through quickly enough that i don’t worry about freezing:
bread flour and all-purpose flour. i keep both of these flours in my pantry in plastic food service containers - air tight and used only for flour so they don’t have any lingering odor from other foods.

so, that’s that. freeze your flour. it’ll last longer!

ps: obviously i’ve left the whole flour bug issue out of this post. but the freezer also prevents unwanted creatures from ruining your flour supply…quite handy!

(a big thank you to ronnie fein who was the inspiration for this post! i hope it’s stopped raining over there, ronnie!)

i’ll admit it. prior to steeping myself in the world of southern biscuits, i was completely against self-rising flour.

even after reading the southern biscuits chapter devoted to self-rising flour i didn’t believe i had any use for the stuff. even after remembering that my sister’s husband (a real, actual southern man) always uses self-rising flour when he makes biscuits, i didn’t believe it. and then i made a batch of biscuits using my own homemade self-rising flour…and i started to believe it. THEN went out and bought a small bag of commercial self-rising flour and made biscuits with it.

ladies & gentleman: sold!

from this point forward a bag of self-rising flour will have a home in my freezer. not for general baking, but simply for biscuit-making. a great biscuit definitely deserves floury real estate in the freezer. honest.

now, if you’re not sure about all this self-rising business, i’m going to share with you now a recipe for homemade self-rising flour. you can whip it up in anticipation for tomorrow’s post where we discuss the simplest homemade biscuits, ever. the self-rising flour (especially if you have it on hand) makes the biscuits come together with three ingredients and ONE STEP…so, not only does the stuff make great biscuits but it also cuts down prep time? amazing!

make this flour. store it in your freezer. make biscuits in a flash.

self-rising flour
from southern biscuits
(in the book the ingredients are listed by volume, but i converted the volume measurements to weights and then increased the batch sizes. you’re welcome.)
yields approximately 8 cups

you need:

• 17 oz AP flour
• 16 oz cake flour
• 1 1/2 oz baking powder
• 1 1/2 oz kosher salt

make the flour:

1. sift all four ingredients together.
2. repeat the sifting.
3. repeat the sifting.

now you have self-rising flour! store it in your pantry if you’ll use it right away. if you’re simply keeping it on hand for quick biscuit making, store it in the freezer.

note: always give your flour a good stir with a whisk before using in recipes.

oregon berry season is right around the corner. while i feel like i’ve been waiting forever, it also seems like just yesterday (or was it last summer?) i was washing and hulling strawberries to stock the freezer for winter.

speaking of stocking the freezer: i just took the last of my last summer’s strawberries out of the freezer and embarked on a preserves journey with them. and because this treasure trove of last summer’s sweetness is so special, i decided to preserve them using a method completely new to me. so. exciting. (if you like watching paint dry.)

usually i cook my preserved fruits with sugar and lemon juice until they reach the desired jammy stage. but this new process involves a lot of waiting time. you mix the berries with sugar and lemon juice. you let them sit. you boil the mixture. you let it sit. and, sometime during all the sitting, you magically make the most authentic tasting preserved fruits, ever.

actually, it’s not magic that does it. it’s the waiting time. allowing the berries to sit in sugar draws moisture out of them. that moisture evaporates during the short cooking time. the results: you cook the fruit less, so it retains more texture, flavor and color. honestly, this is my new favorite way to preserve - i’m seriously looking forward to a summer full of it.

now, the following recipe should not be doubled. actually, it’s already quite large in terms of preserving and if you make it any bigger, you’ll end up ruining the fruit before you ever get it to a high enough boil to thicken it properly. and speaking of thick - i prefer my jams and preserves to be spoonable. loose yet full of fruit - with no need to reach for a knife to cut a wedge of jam out of the jar. besides, it’s much easier to eat a bowl of strawberry preserves using a spoon. [oh, wait, did i just admit that?] because i prefer my preserves loose, this recipe will yield exactly that: perfectly spoonable preserves. (oh, one more note: i call jam preserves and preserves jam all the time. of course, preserves have larger pieces of fruit and jams don’t. but we spread both/either/any on sandwiches, mix them into yogurt, plop them over ice cream and scoop them up into our mouths with spoons. jam? preserves? yes, please.)

another note: this preserves journey takes 3 days. you’ll basically start it friday night and then actually can the preserves on sunday. the actual work time is so short though - most of the time the berry mixture is just hanging out on your countertop.

in addition, as you will see below, i drew on a host of references to sort out my recipe for preserves. all are listed, all contributed some tip or idea that resulted in my recipe for true strawberry deliciousness. (if you buy just one of these books, make it christine ferber’s. i have such an enormous crush on her.)

practically no work strawberry preserves
yields 6 pints

references used:

• mes confitures (all hail christine ferber!)
• the complete book of small-batch preserving
• the joy of jams, jellies and other sweet preserves
• the river cottage preserves handbook
• the farmer’s wife canning & preserving cookbook

prepare to preserve:

1. gather your sterilized pint jars, lids and jar bands.
2. gather your canning tools - canning pot, rack, funnel, jar lifers, etc. refresh your canning memory here.
3. find your largest non-reactive pot. make sure it’s clean.
4. now, let’s jam!

you need:

• 5 1/2 - 6 lbs washed & hulled strawberries, left whole if small, halved if large
• 2 1/2 lbs granulated sugar (if you have vanilla sugar around, even better!)
• 4 oz bottled lemon juice (i always use bottled lemon juice to be sure the acidity is consistent.)

start your preserves journey:

1. in the non-reactive pot, layer the strawberries, topped by the sugar, with the lemon juice poured over the top.
2. put a lid on the pot and let it sit for 8-10 hours or overnight.
3. remove the lid from the pot and put it on the stove over medium heat. as soon as the sugar has melted, raise the heat to medium-high and bring the entire mixture to a boil. boil 3-5 minutes.
4. remove the pot from the heat, place a lint-free kitchen towel over the top and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.
5. remove the towel and put the pot back on the stove top over medium heat. press a few spoonfuls of strawberries up against the sides of the pot to mash them slightly. (don’t mash all of the berries, just a 2-3 spoonfuls.)
6. once the berries have warmed up, increase the heat and boil the mixture hard (a boil that cannot be stirred away) for 3-5 minutes. 
7. ladle your preserves into your sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes. (remember, complete canning instructions here.)

see? your actual cooking time is really only 6-10 minutes total. you so totally can do this. pun completely intended.

and now, preserves in photos:

strawberries, sugar, lemon juice:



berries after sitting overnight:

berries after first boil and sitting 24 hours:



bottom of the pot - thick & sticky:



all canned up:



tomorrow i’ll be back to show you the sad truth of just how much of these preserves i’ve eaten this week. wait. wait. it’s not sad, it’s glorious.

i can’t be the only one excited by this:

click on the image and you’ll be taken to the detailed sausage-making instructions!

yes, please:

click on the image and you can learn how to create your own salami!