Cooking My Way Through The Columbia

Bizcochos de Almendras

2010-07-31T22:27:00.000-07:00

Almond cakes. Mmmmmm. It was good to get back in the kitchen. Not that I haven't been in the kitchen. I practically live in the kitchen. It was just good to get back in this cookbook again, after a week of vacation and a week of recovering from vacation.

The ingredient in this recipe I have never cooked with before is almond paste. I got mine at Whole Foods and it comes in a wrapped tube. It is basically ground almonds and some kind of sweetener. Bizcochos de Almendras is bursting with almond flavor, and it is heavenly. This is by no means low fat or even moderate fat. The recipe uses 2 sticks of butter and 1/2 cup of almond paste. Very rich. You cut it into about 16 squares. Eat one! It is amazing. Personally I prefer it for breakfast with coffee, rather than for dessert. I try not to eat such heavy things right before bed. Much better to have first thing in the morning, when the whole day is yet to be lived and is full of opportunities to burn fat and calories!

In my mind I've turned over a few ideas to make this a little lighter or healthier. I was thinking of using whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose white flour. That might work, or use half white/half wheat. Maybe not quite so much butter. Then again, I would hate to ruin perfection.

The sliced almond topping is quite lovely and frankly I thought it could use a little more almonds than it calls for. I added a little extra, and next time I make it I would add even a bit more. It adds a nice crunch, and almonds are a good fat. The brushed egg white topping makes it nice and meringue-y and the texture of this cake is similar to lemon bars.

This is fun and easy to make! I highly recommend it.

Hmmm....what's next?

Pollo al Diablo

2010-07-14T16:06:00.000-07:00

While vacationing at a beach house in Sea Ranch (Sonoma/Mendocino, CA coast) this week, I had the pleasure of making Pollo al Diablo (Chicken Diablo) while looking out at the ocean and watching foxes and deer prance through the meadow. Not your everyday cooking experience. The wise person who designed this house must have enjoyed cooking and eating, because the kitchen has the best window view of the beach, and the deck, which is the perfect spot for a barbecue and patio table, also faces the ocean.

Before I get started about the sauce, let's talk about chicken. I have not always been able to cook chicken. When I was a preteen and my mom was teaching me how to cook, I couldn't stand handling raw chicken. I remember refusing to touch it. She didn't force me, but she said, "Someday, you'll have your own family, and you'll cook chicken." Yes, Mom, you were right. At the start of my domestic family life, I was able to put off this inevitability for a few years by being a vegetarian. Around 2000 I started eating meat again, and it took me quite awhile to cook it on my own (rather than ordering it at a restaurant). I started with fish, then beef, then chicken was last.

I still do not enjoy handling raw chicken! And I'm just talking about boneless, skinless chicken breasts that you only have to trim and cut. Yes, I am THAT wimpy. I'm not even talking about handling whole chickens, where you sometimes have to cut away bit of liver and kidney and such. Sorry, but I'm just not there yet. I might get there, as I work my way through this cookbook and become more and more adventurous.

In spite of my squeamishness, with the right chicken recipe, the results are well worth it. Delayed gratification. It's not like recipes that are a pleasure to prepare all the way through, like gazpacho, or plantain omelet. There is nothing about the sensory experience of handling raw chicken that is enjoyable to me. But Pollo al Diablo is definitely worth it! And it is really very simple to prepare.

You start by making the marinade/sauce at least two hours before cooking. This sauce reminds me of something you would have seen in a cookbook or magazine in the 1970s, with ketchup and sour cream. Use good quality ingredients, and it works. I used Westbrae organic unsweetened ketchup, and Trader Joe's sour cream. Also, Trader Joe's hot sauce, which I like better than those I've tried from Whole Foods.

Mix 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup hot sauce (depending on how spicy you like it), 1/4 cup honey, and 1 cup sour cream in a bowl. The mixture is a pale pink/orange color. Drop 1/2 tsp. each of paprika and cumin on top. Don't mix it yet! Look at how pretty it is. The powdered spices look like an artist's palette. Add 1/2 cup ketchup. Stir it slowly and watch the colors swirl and change. It's like mixing paint, except it smells yummy. Keep mixing until it is all blended and smooth, then marinate 6 chicken breast halves in half of it for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator. Reserve the rest of the sauce in the refrigerator.

You can cook the marinated chicken on the grill, or in a heavy skillet on the stove. Whenever grilling is an option, weather permitting, I grill. And with the beautiful scenery, it was an easy choice. The recipe says to use 1/2 cup vegetable or peanut oil for cooking. I did not need to use nearly that much oil. I used extra virgin olive oil, simply because it's the only oil I had on hand. If I'd been at home, I probably would have used peanut oil for better flavor. The olive oil worked just fine, though. I brushed the grill with a nice coating of olive oil, and grilled the chicken on both sides, occasionally brushing with more sauce as it cooked. Heat the other half of the sauce in a small saucepan on the stove, being careful not to let it boil, and serve alongside the chicken.

Now, a word about hot sauce. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of hot sauce. I used half of that, thinking that is one hell of a lot of hot sauce, and hoping my kids would try this recipe too. 1/4 cup of hot sauce made it plenty spicy enough for the grownups, and too spicy for the kids. Personally I could have handled it a little bit spicier, but not much. You can always add extra hot sauce at the table.

I served this with grilled zucchini, rainbow shell pasta with olive oil and Romano cheese, and romaine salad with cucumbers and apples. For the zucchini, I sliced it lengthwise into long slabs, brushed it with a dressing (olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic powder), and grilled it over low/medium heat on both sides. Zucchini prepared in this way is mild yet flavorful, and a perfect accompaniment to the spicy chicken. Chilled Rosé alongside is cooling and refreshing.

One final note: leftovers of this chicken, the next day, cold from the fridge, are awesome. There is nothing like leftover cold chicken, if it's good. And if it's good hot, it's even better cold, the next day. It's good straight, but would be nice in a sandwich too.

Enjoy!

~Lori

Ssssssshhh! Don't tell Curt.

2010-07-11T09:34:00.001-07:00

(Just between you and me, I'm packing The Columbia Restaurant Cookbook, along with ingredients for three of the recipes from it. I'm sneaking it into the vacation menu. I'll let you know how it goes when I get back!)

My Spanish Cooking Diversion: Peruvian Shepherd's Pie

2010-07-09T09:18:00.001-07:00

Hi all, well, I tried making the Peruvian Shepherd's Pie last night and I am here to report it was not a success! My kitchen is now covered in grease and I have a big cleanup task today. I have determined that I am either not good at frying, or I need better equipment for frying. It all went pretty well up to the point that I had to fry the potato sculptures, which were very nicely formed. They fell apart in the oil, the result was oil-soaked chunks of meat and potatoes, and my kids complained of how the house smelled. I think I will definitely wait for the actual recipe before trying this dish again. Chef Rachelle Boucher, who was the hosting chef for the cooking demos at the Marin Fair, tells me she will try to get the recipes from Chef Sean. Until then, I'm steering clear of Shepherd's Pie.

The one fun and interesting part of this culinary misadventure is that Chef Sean was right about the Yukon Gold potatoes. They do mash really nicely into a formed "dough" that needs no egg or other binding agent. That's pretty cool, and it's fun to do. He mentioned using it to let kids make sculptures out of for fun. Not a bad idea, and it would be lower in fat and frustration than frying it!

My family is off on vacation for most of the next two weeks, and my kind husband has requested, "Please, no more cooking projects" until we get back. There is a lot to do to get ready!

Peruvian Cooking at the Marin County Fair

2010-07-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

While I did not get to cook from the Columbia cookbook today, I did get to watch a Peruvian cooking demonstration at the Marin County Fair.

Surprisingly, the recipe was not provided in this cooking demo. So I'm not even sure what these dishes were called. Chef Sean gave us some background and history on the country of Peru and its culinary influences. The dishes he prepared today were a sort of Shepherd's Pie, and a corn salad with queso fresco (fresh cheese). We got to sample it at the end, and it tasted amazing. I have already purchased the ingredients for the Shepherd's Pie in hopes of recreating it at home, without a recipe.

First of all, I thought it was interesting that the first culinary influence in Peru was Inca, before the Spanish took over. Then, Peru had two types of cuisines, Spanish, and Inca, and the two never really fused into one. It wasn't until 1870 that Peru came to have a cuisine of its own. (I'm totally paraphrasing and hope I got this right.) Peruvian cuisine varies depending on the geography of the region. Up in the mountains, there is not much meat available, and potatoes are the primary vegetable that can grow. In lower regions by the water, seafood is of course more prevalent. A common source of meat in Peruvian food is guinea pig. Yep. I'm glad Chef Sean steered clear of guinea pig in today's demo.

I gather that potatoes are very prevalent in Peruvian cooking. The Shepherd's Pie is similar to a tamale, but uses potato instead of masa (corn) as the holder for the filling. Chef Sean said Yukon Gold potatoes are the only potatoes he's found will hold together well enough for this recipe. First he sauteed finely chopped onion, then added garlic, spices (salt, pepper, cumin, and I forget what else), then Niman Ranch ground meat (I just realized he called it "ground meat," not "ground beef," so I'm really hoping this wasn't Niman Ranch ground guinea pig...). He mashed the peeled, boiled potatoes, then formed it into a dough with his hands. He said no egg or binding agent is needed; just the potatoes. He scooped out a handful of the potato dough and flattened it into a sort of pancake, then spooned some of the cooked meat mixture into it, then folded it up so it looked like a whole potato. He then rolled these in flour and deep fried them.

He started making the queso fresco early on in the recipe. This is homemade cheese. He started heating milk in a big pan and brought it to 190 degrees, without letting it scald. Once it reached temperature, he juiced a lemon into it, and now I am forgetting what else he added. He took some grilled corn on the cob and cut the corn off of it into a bowl, then added a chopped jalapeño pepper, salt, the juice of a lime, chopped red onion, and maybe something else. Then he added the queso fresco when it was done, and that was sort of like crumbled ricotta cheese.

Somehow I managed to be the first person to get to try these two amazing dishes. I guess it was where I sat, in the front row. I'm short and got there early, so I made sure I got a good seat. They passed out plates to everyone in the audience. I sampled a bit of each, then picked up my phone. My family had reached their limit of patience at the barnyard. I grabbed my plate and ran outside. My kids were melting down and crying, and Curt looked pretty spent. I just went up to them all and started feeding them this Peruvian food and they instantly stopped fussing! Molly wanted to go back in with me to get more, so we did. They were still passing out more sample plates, so I got her another one. She has never liked potatoes before, and she said, "I only like baked potatoes." I told her, "These potatoes are fried." So she said, "I only like fried potatoes." She ate the whole thing. When Chef Sean asked if anyone had any questions, Molly whispered in my ear, "Ask him if your child can please have more."

I plan on attempting to make this tomorrow, and I'll let you know how it goes.

By the way, there was a Spanish cooking demo today as well, but I didn't get to see it. It was given by a chef from the only Spanish restaurant in Marin, Sabor of Spain. I watched the first two minutes and then had to leave. He was making a paella. But I'm glad I know about the restaurant now so I can check it out.

Caviar de Frijoles Negros, and other thoughts

2010-07-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

I made Caviar de Frijoles Negros (Black Bean Dip) this week, and somehow, I haven't managed to make much else from the Columbia lately. After the 4th of July holiday, I will certainly be diving right back into it.

Anyway...the dip was really good. I didn't add the raw chopped onion garnish because it just didn't sound good at the time. I did like the chopped hard-boiled egg garnish, though. Curt's comment was "This looks weird, but I'm hungry." :-) I thought the dip was heavier on the olive oil than it really needs to be. Also, the recipe does not call for salt, and it does need salt, unless you are using beans that are already plenty salted.

This is a pretty simple recipe. It helps a lot if you have a food processor. But, it's not crucial. You just mash the cooked beans with a lot of raw garlic, then heat it for a bit in a pan with olive oil. We dipped tortilla chips. Eli liked it; Molly did not. Probably too much garlic for her.

I hope to do much more Columbia cooking next week. I'd like to get into some of the main dishes, and maybe a dessert. Happy Fourth!

~Lori

Sangria

2010-06-28T12:23:00.001-07:00

It was a busy, fun weekend. I'm easing back into cooking today by soaking some black beans I will use to make Caviar de Frijoles Negros (black bean dip) tonight.

I made the Sangria recipe last night for the second time. I read that Sangria may have started by mixing fruit juice with inferior wine. Then, as better quality wine became available, brandy, sugar, and spices were added instead. This sangria recipe contains Spanish red wine (preferably from the Rioja region, which I used), brandy, sugar, club soda, orange juice, lemon juice, and fresh orange slices. (It also calls for maraschino cherries, but I'm not a fan of these so I left them out.) You chill it in the fridge and then you can pour it over ice if you like. Making sangria ice cubes would work well to make it nice and cold without watering it down.

While I enjoy sangria, I have to say that it's not the easiest thing to digest. The combination of fruit and wine is rather rich. You might find you can't comfortably consume as much of it as you could drink straight wine. Just a heads up! It's very refreshing - but it is not light! I haven't figured out yet what it pairs especially well with in this cookbook. Possibly not frijoles negros!

Have a beautiful Monday! I'm off to arrange a date with Mickey Mouse.

Ensalada de San Isidro

2010-06-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

This salad is simple, beautiful, and the perfect blend of tangy-savory-sweet.

First, I washed the butter lettuce. This was nothing but fun. The leaves are like cute little cups. It was hard to resist eating it all as I washed it. I tore it into bite-size pieces in a big bowl. Then I thinly sliced the red onion. This recipe does not use an overwhelming amount of onion, which I appreciate. Only four thin slices for the whole salad, which serves two as a meal. Then I sliced the ripe, sweet, heirloom tomatoes into eight wedges each.

*** Time out - OMG THE HEIRLOOM TOMATOES ARE SO GOOD. ***

Okay. Back to the recipe. Arrange the lettuce on two large dinner plates, then place the tomatoes and onions on top. Add a can of chunk white tuna. I used unsalted Tongol tuna from Whole Foods. I like the unsalted because then I can control the saltiness myself with the amount of salt I put in the dressing. I don't like very much salt. Some people do. Those people can add salt.

Before or after this, whip up the dressing in a bowl. It's simple. It's just equal parts extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar, then garlic powder, salt, and pepper. I prefer to add the salt and pepper after pouring the dressing on the salad, because I really don't know how much it needs until I taste it all together. I can guess, but that's just based on looking at it, which doesn't make much sense to me. The onion gives a kick that means you might need less pepper, depending on taste. I've made the mistake of adding too much pepper before tasting just because it looks pretty. Then taste it, and, agh - too much pepper. Know what I mean? Do I hear an Amen? Is it just me?

I ate this salad all by myself because I am the ONLY one in this house who appreciates tomatoes. For all you non-tomato-lovers out there: I am so, so sorry that this pleasure is missing from your life. Then again, I can relate. I didn't like tomatoes until adulthood. I also didn't like chocolate as a child. I KNOW. Anyway - you can easily enjoy this salad without the tomatoes, if you prefer. Vegetarians can also enjoy it immensely without the tuna. Please do. You have my blessing.

My camera battery is dead, so I'll have to post photos of this salad later. I have never enjoyed photography so much as I am now, as I am photographing food. I like it so much that sometimes I have to remind myself to eat the food. And I did - with a glass of Vida Orgánica Malbec Rosé from Argentina. This is my favorite Rosé lately, and it's on sale at Whole Foods! Photos later, I promise!

♥♥♥
~Lori

Heirloom Tomatoes and Butter Lettuce, Oh My!

2010-06-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Quick shopping at Whole Foods today was both a pleasure and an education.

Most importantly: Heirloom tomatoes are in! I think I gasped out loud when I saw them. And, I think I handled almost every single one before I decided on the two best for making Ensalada de San Isidro. And I did not put them in the fridge when I got home.

The recipe for Ensalada de San Isidro calls for Boston or Bibb Lettuce. This was nowhere to be found, because, as I learned from Helpful Produce Guy, it's called Butter Lettuce here on the west coast. There are two kinds to choose from: regular (green) and red. I chose red only because it looked healthier and fresher than the green today. The price is the same. Butter lettuce is so cute and fun to play with. Did I just say that out loud? You just try to peel the leaves apart in the salad spinner and not play with it a little.

I'm back to making that salad now!

"Refreshing, with a bite"

2010-06-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm a little excited, because this is how my next-door neighbor Maria described the bowl of Gazpacho Andaluz I brought her. I quizzed her and explained how NOT-easily offended I am, to make sure she wasn't just being nice. She said she liked the bread-y texture because it gave the soup more substance than the thin, brothy kind of gazpacho. She said it's not spicy, but it has just the right amount of bite, from the raw onion, garlic, and green pepper.

Gazpacho, continued

2010-06-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

Gazpacho Andaluz is complete. I'm having a bowl of it, with a glass of Vida Orgánica Malbec wine as I type. The flavors are fantastic. The texture....is like eating cold, watery mush. The pale orange color is not super appetizing either. Don't get me wrong, it tastes good. But I don't think I can get into the wet, pureed bread thing. I think this soup would be delightful without the bread. I didn't add the crouton garnish because the bread that is already in the soup felt like enough bread. The cucumber, tomato, onion, and green pepper garnish is very nice. Maybe I can find some neighbors who like gazpacho. I'm not dismissing that this might taste much better with a different bread. I hope to visit the restaurant someday so I can find out.

On the plus side, I used this recipe as an opportunity to show Molly the wonders of the food processor (for chopping the onions), and she bravely peeled an onion all by herself. She did a good job of it, too."I want to help you with whatever a 5-year-old can," is what she told me. Sounds good to me.

Gazpacho Andaluz

2010-06-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Things don't always go as planned. I ended up celebrating the first day of Summer by buying the ingredients for Gazpacho Andaluz, but I'm just now making it today. I'm actually in the middle of making it right now. The ingredients need to mingle for an hour before I blend them.

(If you must know what happened, Molly and I ended up eating most of the fresh baked bread I had purchased for this recipe. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, with butter. It was that kind of afternoon.)

Let's talk about tomatoes, the base for this chilled Summer soup. I meant to make the soup the same day I bought the produce, but since that didn't happen, I put the produce in the fridge. I wish I hadn't done that with the tomatoes. I forgot that refrigerating tomatoes makes them a bit hard and mealy. But on a hot day, I didn't feel like I could just leave them out. I welcome your thoughts and experiences with this dilemma. For now, it has motivated me to grow my own garden tomatoes again.

If you're going to make Gazpacho Andaluz, I hope you're not in a hurry. Using a food processor for the onions helps a lot. That saved me a ton of time and labor. But there is one little, innocent-sounding ingredient, "3 ripe tomatoes - peeled, seeded, and chopped," - that took two seconds to read but about A HUNDRED YEARS to achieve. Okay, maybe about an hour. If anyone has tips, gadgets, or techniques for speeding this process, do tell! It's the seeding that really takes a long time. But the process is not unpleasant. You're handling tomatoes, after all. At the end, you're left with a pile of succulent, seedless flesh you only need to chop and add to the pool of yumminess.

And here is the pool of yumminess. All 9 ingredients - water, onions, garlic, cucumber, white vinegar, olive oil, tomatoes, salt, and bread - need to soak for an hour before you puree them in a blender and chill. This mixture smells like heaven, and you and your cookbook will smell like it when you're done, too. Believe me, it's a good thing. A wooden spoon would work well for gently mixing it, but what works even better are your (obviously very clean) hands. I had forgotten about the tactile pleasures of cooking. As I added the chopped onions to the water, then tomatoes, cucumbers, etc., I couldn't help but dip my hands into the mixture and touch everything and mix it. Super clean hands seemed like the perfect tool. This might be why I still smell like garlic.

I have to say that I was a little puzzled about the bread. Wet, pureed bread. Huh. Really? It's not what I think of as gazpacho, but then, I didn't realize that the word gazpacho comes from the Arabic word meaning "soaked bread". After pureeing everything, it does not seem like the most appetizing texture. But it's chilling in the fridge right now and I'm curious to see how it tastes. I need to chop the garnishes first - cucumber, green pepper, onion, and tomato.

I do wonder whether I used the right kind of bread. The recipe just says to use 4 slices of bread. I'm sure the Columbia Restaurant uses their house-made Cuban bread. I looked for something like that at Whole Foods, but ended up with a sourdough. Now I'm wondering whether a staler (maybe day or two old) bread would have been better than fresh. Thoughts?

Time to go chop the garnishes now.

Happy Summer!

2010-06-21T11:17:00.001-07:00

To celebrate the first day of Summer, I will skip to the end of the soup section and make Gazpacho Andaluz (Spanish Cold Tomato Soup). Summer-fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers should be a nice contrast to yesterday's hearty bean soup.

First, a trip to the Whole Foods produce department is needed. Speaking of Whole Foods, the Whole Foods Market website has a great shopping list tool. When I'm feeling too lazy to use pen and paper, or when I'm at the computer anyway, I use it to make lists and email them to myself. Then I'm one of those people walking through the produce aisle staring at my phone. And I use it whether I'm shopping at Whole Foods or somewhere else. You do have to create an account to use this tool.

Fabada Asturiana

2010-06-20T10:39:00.001-07:00

Cooking teaches many lessons. My first lesson while cooking Fabada Asturiana (Asturian Navy Bean Soup): my knives SUCK.

My 20-something-year-old Chicago Cutlery and cheap Ikea knives (what my brother calls "toy knives") have been getting me by just fine for vegetables, bread, chicken, cheese, and fruit, somehow. Not for salt pork. Salt pork is basically a hunk of fat. Or at least, that is the texture of most of it. Cutting it into bite-size pieces with a dull or cheap knife is not fun. I wrestled with the 1/2-lb. hunk of salt pork, a cutting board, and various knives for a good while and, with much internal swearing, managed to transform it into small pieces.

The first step in this recipe is soaking the beans overnight. So you need to start this recipe the night before you want it for lunch or dinner the next day. Unless you use canned beans, but that's cheating. Or, not nearly as good, anyway.

For those who read my previous post on morcilla, yes I did chicken out on using morcilla this time. And the soup was plenty good without it. But, Jennifer has convinced me I need to try it, and Lawrence even pointed out that the Pure Grain Bakery in Vacaville carries it. I'm left with no excuses. I'm all about eating blood. I can totally do it.

The best part of this recipe is when you get to brown the chorizo in a skillet with olive oil and garlic. Because, well, YUM. After cooking it I let Molly lick the wooden spoon with bits of chorizo and olive oil on it and I swear I saw her eyes roll back in her head.

Ham hock, I learned, is basically a hunk of ham on the bone and you just simmer it with the beans throughout the whole cooking process. By the end, you just work with it a little and the ham just slides off the bones and you can easily pull the bones out of the soup.

The salt pork freaked me out a little because it looks like, and basically is, little globs of fat throughout the soup with tiny bits of actual pork attached to it. But, it's all good. There is no oil or butter used in the cooking, except for the olive oil for browning the chorizo. Once cooked, the salt pork becomes all melty, swirly, smokey, and bacon-scented and becomes one with the soup.

At the end, you add potatoes and simmer it until they're soft. After that, you let the soup sit for 1-2 hours while you go bowling. At least, that is what we did today! Molly couldn't quite wait that long so I did let her sample a small bowl of it as soon as it finished cooking. Her review: "GIVE ME MORE." Thus, the look on her face in the picture. Eating Fabada Asturiana is serious business.

So now, I am on a quest for morcilla, good knives, and a cast iron skillet.

Tortilla de Plátanos

2010-06-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

So I'm pretty much in love with plantains. My first experience with plantains was rather late in life, only a few years ago when I was working with Eileen at Autodesk. It was my first week on a contract job (technical writing) and Eileen had ordered lunch from Sol Food. I can't even remember what the occasion was because it doesn't matter - what matters is, lunch was from SOL FOOD. Killer Puerto Rican/Cuban food from this amazing little hole-in-the-wall in downtown San Rafael.

There were sweet plantains. There were garlic plantains. How can you possibly choose? No, you must have both. It doesn't really matter what you eat them with. Rice, beans, chicken, salad. That's not the point. Plantains are the point.

Thank you, Eileen, for introducing me to the wonderful world of Sol Food. I don't go there often enough, but when I do, it does not matter that I am sitting on a tiny barstool at a tiny counter, awkwardly facing other customers in similar seating arrangement through a window. Total bliss is what happens and nothing else matters. I've even dined there at the tiny table in their tiny parking lot, and it's as good as sitting in a 5-star restaurant.

Enough about Sol Food. This recipe is a plantain omelet - Tortilla de Plátanos. The recipe went remarkably well. I'm especially pleased, considering I used a stainless steel skillet, and not a nonstick, cast iron, or omelet pan. It worked. Of course, the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of peanut oil. It would be hard for anything to stick in that.

I was not sure whether the plantains were ripe enough, but I was impatient. They looked ripe, I did an internet search for images of ripe versus non-ripe plantains (yes, I am THAT obsessed with plantains), they felt soft enough, and smelled sweet....so I went for it.

I had to fry the plantains in two batches. The recipe says to just fry them all in an 8-inch skillet, but they don't all fit. I drained them on paper towels and it was really pretty easy. I thought I might have to brown the top under the broiler like a frittata, but lo and behold, it flipped and did not stick. This recipe is so simple! The only ingredients are peanut oil, plantains, eggs, and salt.

And it was heavenly.

Morcilla

2010-06-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Whole Foods does not carry morcilla (Spanish blood sausage) so I'm going to go ahead and use that as an excuse to chicken out of cooking and eating it. I was ready to try it - like a vampire! But no, I don't think I can do it. I will have to make Asturian soup without it for now. I did pick up some smoked ham hock (I didn't even know what that was), salt pork, and chorizo, none of which I have ever cooked with. This should be interesting!

Plantains!

2010-06-18T21:18:00.001-07:00

I love plantains but have never cooked with them. There is a plantain omelet recipe in this book I can't wait to try next. Whole Foods has plantains - check. Recipe calls for 8" skillet, not an omelet pan, so I'm hoping this will work with my trusty stainless steel skillet.

Tortilla de Esparragos, Papas, y Cebollas.

2010-06-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

Omelet with Asparagus, Potatoes, and Onion. It smelled and tasted good, but I do not have the right pan for this recipe. I used a standard stainless steel skillet. I need to get a real omelet pan. It stuck to the bottom and would not flip over, so I just made a scramble out of it. It was delicious! When the recipe says "smashed garlic," I should have just smooshed a little, not pressed it, because you have to remove it from the oil and that's hard to do if it's minced. Oh, and I used half of a large red onion instead of the whole it called for. This seemed like mighty plenty of onion to me.

I am going to skip the rest of the omelet section until I get the right cookware, and move on to the next section for now! I'll have to find something else to do with the head of cauliflower.

My first cooking blog

2010-06-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

I'm going to cook my way through the Columbia Restaurant Cookbook and blog about it as I go.

This cookbook was given to me recently by my brother Lawrence, after he visited the Columbia in St. Petersburg, FL with his sweetheart, Susan.