Big Eats

Holy Guacamole

2008-01-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

A belated wedding present showed up on our door step late last summer, a lava stone mortar and pestle. In traditional Tim Martyn style, Marie carefully assembled a magnificent guacamole. For now here's the picture, if you're lucky she'll tell you how to make it.

Dumplings

2008-01-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

We tried our hand at some pork dumplings last night. Click here for the full instructions, they're great and really worth the effort. Our new kitchen aid food grinder attachment made mincing the ingredients for the filling really easy. We used unbleached whole wheat flour for the shells. Not bad for our first attempt. The dipping sauce is important, ours was 2:1 soy to red wine vinegar with some Sambal Olek (Chili Garlic Sauce) to taste.

Yogurt

2008-01-25T12:00:00.001-08:00

We got a yogurt maker last week, so far i've made 1 batch and ruined 1 batch. Latter today I will make another that I hope will work. It's not rocket science really, bring your milk to a near boil in a pot on the stove and then cool to 95 degree's Fahrenheit.

Next mix in some yogurt from a previous batch or use a starter pack of bacteria and then pour into individual jars and leave it in the yogurt maker for 8-10 hours, follow this with a few hours of refrigeration and you've got some great tangy yogurt.

If you're even thriftier than us you could probably use your Ronco style food dehydrator to heat the yogurt for the necessary 8-10 hours. I like the individual 6oz. jars ours came with, and it was only $30. Seeing as how we tend to run our dehydrators fairly constantly (although not so much lately) it's nice to have the separate yogurt maker unit. Other's i've read about online use ice chest or coolers filled with jugs of hot water, whatever works for you.

Hot stuff

2008-01-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's been a long time since we wrote anything on this blog but it turns out people are actually looking at it, I'm impressed!

I consider myself spoiled to be able to live so close to the farmers market and over the last 2 years we've spent plenty of time shopping there. In the last year or so Peppahead has showed up at the market. Do yourself a favor and get some of his chili powders, or at the very least check his website out and try some recipes.

http://www.peppahead.com/

This guy grows all his own peppers in his back yard in sunny San Rafael (hey that's where we live!). And he's not fooling around, to quote Troy McLure "that's flavor country". It's not all hot stuff either, lots of rich smokey tastes.

Pizza

2007-11-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

More catchup, here's some pizza i made a while ago, I promise it only looks ugly, it's super tasty.

1. Combine 8oz flour, 1tsp sugar, 1/2tsp salt and 1 packet of yeast in a large bowl.
2. Combine1tblsp. olive oil, 3fl oz. milk and 1/3cup warm water, and then mix them into the above dry ingredients, knead for 5 minutes.
3. Put your dough ball in a lightly oiled bowl, rolling the dough around to get it covered. Cover and let rest for 1 hour in a warm place..
4. Meanwhile make a tomato sauce by cooking a finely chopped onion and some garlic until it changes color, add fresh tomato's, salt, basil and whatever else you think tastes good in a sauce. Simmer until it's turning into sauce.
5. After 1 hour, punch down the dough ball to expel the air and knead for a few minutes. Roll the dough out to around 12 inches in diameter. Spread the sauce over the dough, along with any other topping you wish to add. In this case we did some sliced green peppers and fresh mozzerella.
6. Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes at 415F, or until crispy and bubbling.

November Chili Cook-Off

2007-11-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

The last freezer post motivated me to do something with the 5.14 pounds of ground beef sitting in the freezer.

There is enough ground beef for us to make two different chili recipes, each from our trusted cookbooks. One is a crockpot chili (1 lb ground beef) and the other is a mega batch (4 lbs!!) that cooks on the stove.

It will take a while for the beef to thaw so it will be a day or two until you hear about the results.

We Love Our Mini Deep-Freezer!

2007-11-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

We have been really slack in adding new posts to Big Eats these last few weeks. During that time we were occasionally using up our variety of homemade frozen meals to make room in the freezer for a new round of recipes.

Last summer, we purchased a small 3-cubic foot freezer from a church rummage sale for 50 bucks. It is about the size of a mini-bar fridge. The previous owner didn't bother to clean it, likely ignored the "growing" problem inside, and in a last ditch of desperation, must have decided to sell it instead of properly cleaning it.

As the saying goes, one persons trash is another man's treasure. In this case, we saw the diamond in the rough, and it's been worth every penny. With a little bit of time to let it air out outside, some elbow grease, and determination, we ended up with a great appliance to supplement our small kitchen.

Our trusty little freezer gives us space for our homemade broths....meat, poultry, and fish...homemade ravioli...berries and fruit for dessert...soups...Jonathon's homemade bread dough..... Are you guys hungry yet?

Preparing meals and freezing them ahead for later use has been a lifesaver for us this year.

Economically: we are less tempted to cave to the easy-way-out and order takeout or eat at restaurant. We also get more for our money, as meals can easily be doubled.
Health: this year has been a year for improving our eating and exercise habits. Knowing what is in your food and where it comes from is important and gives you the control over what you put into your body.
Mental Will-Power: Sometimes a person just doesn't feel like cooking. There's times where we have lost inspiration for cooking, so we fall back on our freezer meals. When we are in cooking mode, that's when we enjoy the fresh meal but also freeze the leftovers for another day.
TIME!!! Fast food could be considered a necessity these days...but that doesn't mean fast food has to be less than healthful.

In later posts, we'll give you a glimpse of the cookbooks in our culinary arsenal. Stay tuned!

Pumpkin Custard Pie!

2007-10-14T16:21:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been 2 months since i've posted anything. In the spirit of thanksgiving, Halloween and the fall in general i've been cooking pumpkin. I try as much as possible not to use any pre-made ingredients, so this pie uses fresh pumpkin and a homemade crust.

Pie Crust
sift 1&1/3 cup flour and 1/8tsp. salt into a food processor (I used the trusty immersion blender). Add 8 tblsp. cubed butter (1 stick) and blend for 1-2 minutes until mixed well. Add 2tblsp. water and 1 egg yolk and blend some more. Remove from the bowl and knead for a little while, shape into a disc, wrap in plastic, and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Pie Filling
Use 1&1/4 cups baked and pureed pumpkin (bake pumpkin for 1.5 hrs at 350f, then blenderize it). Mix in 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks, 1 cup & 2 tbsp. milk, 1/2 cup cream, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/4 brown sugar, 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp. nutmeg together.

Put it all together
Roll out the pie crust to fit your pie plate, something around 1/8 inch thickness. Bake the crust only for 8 minutes at around 400f. Our oven is hard to weild, and ended up around 375f without problems. Remove from the oven and prick any bubbles in the crust with a fork. Pour in your filling and bake at 350f for 40-45 minutes, check the centre to make sure its set, it'll firm up a bit when it's done. Remove, cool to room temperature and eat!

Whiskey Baked Figs

2007-08-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

We got some figs a couple of days ago and I found this recipe online at http://www. recipies4us.co.uk last night, it was too interesting sounding not to try. Vary the amount of sauce to taste, I made just enough to cover the bottom of the dish, but you may like more or less. Save electricity and do this one in the toaster oven. The sauce is pretty sweet so i'm sure you can cut down on the amount of honey if you like, i was surprised how the whiskey mellowed out and wasn't overpowering.

1. Preheat your oven to 425F, and grease a dish lightly with butter.

2. Place equal parts whiskey and honey in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, stirring constantly and then remove from heat. I used 2 oz.'s whiskey and 2 oz.'s honey.

3. Wash and cut your figs in half and place cut side up in the dish. Drizzle your honey/whiskey mixture over the figs, and sprinkle a couple of table spoon of crushed roasted nuts over the top. I used a mixture of almonds, cashews, and walnuts roasted in a pan on medium heat for a couple of minutes, and then crushed with a mortar and pestle. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until just tender.

Caffe

2007-08-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

Get your self one of these nice guys from Bialetti and get yourself some of this. Sit back and enjoy.

Caprese Salad

2007-08-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

This is an easy one but still worth mentioning. You can't go wrong with fresh basil from the market, heirloom tomato's, fresh mozzarella, and some good olive oil.

Salmon Cakes

2007-08-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

Mmnn... this freeze really well, we have a bunch just waiting to be cooked. You can too!

1. Cut 1 lb. of salmon into 2-inch cubes and either chop or blend in the food processor depending on the consistancy you like.

2. Combine the salmon with 1/2 cup ground cracker crumbs, 1 egg, 1 tsp dry dill, 1tbsp lemon juice, 1/3 cup finely chopped red pepper, and 1/2 cup finely chopped green onions, mix well. Season with salt pepper and cayenne, and then form the mixture into 3-inch patties about 1-inch thick.

3. Wrap the patties individually in plastic wrap and freeze for up to 1 month. Cook in a frying pan for about 3 minutes each side or until brown. Don't overcook. These cook pretty quickly.

4. Serve with sauce, 1/4 cup mayonaise, 1/3 cup sweet chili sauce, 1 tbsp prepared horseradish, 1tbsp lemon juice, a few dashs of hotsauce (tapatio is what i use, not that nasty tabasco stuff.)

Caribbean pork Roast

2007-08-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

ooh... 2 slow cooker recipies in one day. This is a favourite around here, just make it.

1. Obtain yourself a pork roast of about 2-3 lbs, and trim it of any excess fat. On all sides of the meat make small slits and insert slivered ginger, garlic and whole cloves. About a total of 6 cloves of garlic, slivered, a good 2 inch sized piece of ginger, which should also be slivered, and 20 whole cloves.

2. Combine 2tbsp brown sugar, and 1tsp dry mustard together and rub all over the roast. Next place the roast in your oven set to broil and brown the roast on all sides, about a total of 15 minutes. I turn the roast every 5 minutes or so, but don't wait any longer than 5 minutes or you'll burn your roast.

3. While browning your roast combine 1 finely chopped serrano, jalapeno or scotch bonnet (choose depending on how spicy you like it), 1tsp each salt & pepper, 1/2 cup rum, and zest & juice of 1 lime.

4. Remove the roast from the oven and place in slow cooker, pour rum mixture over the roast, and cook on low 10-12 hours, or high for 5-6 hours.

5. Excess liquid from the slow cooking can be mixed with cornstarch disolved in cold water to make gravy if you want. We haven't had much excess liquid with this recipie and haven't really bothered with this.

Slow cooker Ribs n' beans

2007-08-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Oh, boy a new recipie. I hope someone out there is finding these usefull. A couple of weeks ago we made this ribs and beans recipie, it orginally called for pork ribs but we used beef ribs without too much trouble. Drain off the fat as much as you can through-out, that's my only complaint with this recipie, but it's tasty and filling.

1. Brown 3 lbs of ribs on all sides in a skillet. Transfer to your slow cooker and drain off the fat from the skillet.

2. Saute 2 onions, finely chopped and 4 stalks of chopped celery in the pan until soft. Add 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped, 1-2 chopped jalepeno's, 1tbsp chili powder, 2tsp cumin seeds, 1tsp each salt and pepper and cook, stiring, for 1 minute. Stir in 28oz canned (including juice) or fresh tomato's, 10oz chicken broth, and 1 cup of red wine. Bring to a boil and simmer until the liquid has reduced by 1 third, 10-15 min.

3. Pour sauce over ribs in the slow cooker. Add 1 cup of dried pinto beans, cooked and drained, or 1 19oz can of of drained and rinsed pinto beans. And cook on low for 6-8 hours, or high for 3-4 hours.

Chicken Enchiladas

2007-07-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

We've been busy over the last week cooking and freezing. So busy we had to give away some food to make more room in the freezers! I've never made Enchiladas before, but this recipie is really easy, and i think with a few tweeks it'll become a staple around here. I think this recipie made about 12 Enchiladas, and we're full after 2 each. We don't have a pan that fit all 12 Enchiladas at once in the oven, so you'll need to adjust your amounts of sauce and chicken accordingly when you're preparing the pan.

1. In a pot or deep pan saute 1 onion until tender.

2. Add 2 tablespoons garlic, 1 tsp. oregano, 1 tsp. ground cumin, 4 tblsp. chili powder, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tblsp. cocoa, 3 tblsp. flour (I used ground quinoa), and stir for 1 minute.

3. Add 4 cups of chicken broth, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30minutes. Remove from heat.

4. While you're waiting for the sauce you need to prepare some chicken. We used some chicken breasts that we cooked, around 4 in total. You can use rotiseree chicken as well if it's easier, just make sure you've got a total of 3 cups worth, and shred or chop it up a bit.

5. Add 1 cup of sauce to the 3 cups of cooked chicken and mix well.

6. measure out 2 cups of shredded cheese and chop 1 bunch of green onions.

7. Divide the chicken mixture, onion and cheese among all your tortillas (8 inch tortillas work good).

8. Place some sauce in the bottom of a baking dish, just enough to cover the bottom.

9. Fill each tortilla with it's portion of cheese, onion and chicken, roll it up, and place it seam side down in the pan.

10. Spoon the remaining sauce, cheese and onions over the Enchiladas.

11. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 350F. Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes.

Barbecue

2007-07-25T11:53:00.001-07:00

Oh the barbecue is a wonderful thing.

French Toast

2007-07-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made up a big batch of French Toast -- add a bit of vanilla, fresh ground cinnamon, and yum! We served it with some syrup and the leftover mascarpone cheese from our Mushroom Soup recipie -- the mascarpone was to die for!

The remaining french toast I froze for later. Just separate each piece with waxed paper or saran wrap and pop the stack into a ziploc freezer bag -- but make sure you squeeze out as much air as possible. No one likes burned toast, especially freezer-burned toast!

The Best Brie

2007-07-21T12:40:00.001-07:00

Last week we finally took the time to check out the Marin French Cheese Company in Peteluma, California. It's only 30 minutes from our place, and we are kicking
ourselves that we didn't check it out sooner!!!

They have a great selection of cheeses, and other food &
wine accompaniments -- perfect place to stop and pack a light picnic on your way to Point Reyes National Seashore!

Jonathon tried a combination of brie & heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market. The crackers we had on hand had cracked black peppercorns in them - YUM!!

Blackberry Attack

2007-07-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

We combed the blackberry bushes down the street from our apartment and managed to pick a solid 2 pounds of berries. Not a huge amount for the die-hard berry pickers out there, but pretty good considering they're just down the street. Did I mention they're free. I made some Black&Blue Compote out of these combined with our blueberries from the market, it's cooling on the counter, give it a try, super easy and very tasty.

Black & Blue Compote

In a pot combine 3 cups of blueberries, 3 cups of blackberries and 1 cup of water, cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Uncover and add 1/4cup brown sugar, 2/3cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup corn syrup and 1/4tsp salt, and return to a boil. While you're waiting for this to boil combine 1 tblspoon of corn starch with 2 tblspoons water and then add it to the pot.

Simmer until the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes and remove from heat. Add juice from 1 lemon.

This can be served hot or cold on yoghurt, pancakes or whatever you can think of. It makes about 5 cups of sauce. Try less sugar too, I used less than 1/2 of what the original recipie called for and this is about as sweet as I can handle.

Olive Ranch

2007-07-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

We toured a small Olive Ranch, Terra Bella Vista Olive Oil Co., on the west side of Rohnert Park this week. If you're ever in the neighbourhood I can't recommend a visit enough! Doug and Judi are great hosts and the tour is free! It's very educational and their oil is amazing to taste!.

Here's a link for their info.

Check out this view from their property.

Good Tea

2007-07-08T23:37:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we found the red blossom tea store in Chinatown in San Francisco. Worth checking out if you're ever there. You can buy Chamomile in bulk, which we did, and also got some of the vanilla orchid, a tasty black tea.

Saving Tomato Seeds

2007-07-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

Marie is saving seeds from some heirloom tomatoes we bought at the farmers market!

How To Save Tomato Seeds from GardenWeb.com

Mushroom Soup

2007-07-06T14:10:00.001-07:00

Mushroom soup for lunch. This is the best mushroom soup i've ever had, kiss bye bye to the Campbells.

1 cup dried wild mushrooms

1.5 lbs of mixed fresh mushrooms, sliced.

2 cloves garlic

1 red onion

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons fresh or dried thyme

4.5 cups of stock (we used turkey, but try chicken or veg.)

2 table spoons mascarpone cheese

1 lemon

-Add hot water to the dried mushrooms and hydrate for 20min.

- In your stock pot saute the fresh mushrooms for 1min. then add the garlic, butter, onion and thyme and saute for another 2-3 min. Chop half of your soaked mushrooms and then add, along with about 1/2 cup of the soaking water. Cook for 20min.

- Add your stock, bring to a boil and simmer for 20min. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Grab your immersion blender and puree the hot soup, and mix in the mascarpone. You can add some flat leaf parsley if you've got it too.

- Serve soup into bowls and mix in a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, top with more chopped parsley, toasted bread, a little more mascarpone.

You Make It!

2007-07-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

We also have another blog called You Make It! since we are the DIY types. Jonathon's interested in electronics, Marie's interested in crafts, and we are both into kitchen-garden related DIY projects. You Make It! is still in it's infancy, but check back every now and then to see what's new in our DIY world....

Black Lentils

2007-07-04T19:09:00.001-07:00

I'm posting like crazy... I'm going to come back to these and add some recipies soon. Here's the most excellent creamy black lentil recipie we had for lunch yesterday. It's relatively quick to make provided you soak the black lentils ahead of time.

Peanut Butter Cookies

2007-07-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

I made some peanut butter cookies today. We used the Kitchen Aid grainmill attachment and ground up some whole Quinoa. First time we've used the attachment, and first time we've had the Quinoa. The recipie wasn't the greatest, but we'll definitly be doing more with the Quinoa.

Onion Soup

2007-07-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

Marie was busy today with French Onion soup. Neither of us have ever made it before, she said she'd make it again, i'll definitly eat it again, and again, and again... Check it out.

2.5lbs onions, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons fresh or dried thyme
6 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons butter
6 cups stock

-Slowly fry the onions so they don't color with the thyme, garlic and bay leaf in olive oil and butter, about 15min. Then turn up the heat and cook until light golden.
-Add the stock and simmer for 20min. Add salt and pepper to taste.
-Pour your soup into bowls, slice a baguette roughly and place it on top then drizzle with oil and add some Gruyere on top. Preheat your oven and place the bowl into the oven and broil until the cheese melts and the bread gets crispy.