Sushi Class

Its been a while since I've posted, I've been busy as hell.
I did teach a sushi class though, well, technically 3 of them, and wanted to post those recipes. It was more hands on than my normal classes, that usually only have one hands-on element. Students all made their own sushi this time, I made and served just the hot food and dessert.
Here's the pdf of all the recipes, except for the daifuku, which is below.

Back row: Toro (tuna), Ebi (shrimp), Sake (salmon) and Avocado nigiri sushi, Inarizushi, Spicy California Gunkan Maki
Front Row: Tai (snapper), Hamachi (yellowtail) with Yuzu Ponzu, serrano chile and cilantro, Sake Rose (salmon) Sashimi

For hot food we made blistered shishito peppers with smoked sea salt, garlic chile edamame, and my quick and dirty miso soup.

Pink Daifuku

For dessert, even though I knew I didn't have time to cover how to make them, I served homemade daifuku, a kind of mochi (sweet) that is a little unusual and class presented an excellent opportunity for me to give the students something to taste that they wouldn't normally seek out on their own. Not only is the flavor of daifuku odd for American palettes, but the texture is like nothing in our cuisine either. The best description I overheard one student give another was, "It's like gummy raw pie dough wrapped around refried beans with sugar in them." Yes, I suppose that's pretty accurate.

Daifuku Recipe

Filling Ingredients (makes enough for 2 daifuku recipes)

1 can Adzuki beans 14 oz
1/2 c water
1 c granulated sugar
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
Pinch of salt

Dough Ingredients

1 c Mochiko (white box with a blue star on it, Koda Farms brand of Sweet Rice Flour)
1/4 c granulated sugar
2/3 c water
Potato starch, for flouring the board (cornstarch works too)

Filling Procedure
Bring water and sugar to a boil and boil until sugar is dissolved and set aside to cool.
Drain and rinse the adzuki beans, and add to a saucepan over medium heat. Add oil, salt and 1/3 c of the sugar water syrup and mash the beans up with a potato masher. They should be the consistency of thick refried beans (add more sugar syrup if you need to). Heat until bean paste is hot and starts to look a little shiny. Set aside to cool.

Daifuku Procedure
Mix the dough ingredients in a microwave safe bowl (if you'd like to color them, mix in 1 or 2 drops of food coloring to the water before adding it to the rest of the ingredients- green and pink are traditional colors) making sure there are no lumps and there's no dough/residue stuck to the walls of the bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Take it out and mix thoroughly. Cover it again and microwave for 1 minute more. If when you open the door, the dough deflates, it's ready. If your dough didn't inflate in the microwave yet, zap it again for another minute. It should deflate when you open the door.

Remove the dough from the microwave and scrape out onto a potato starch covered board. Pat the hot dough to flatten a bit and cover with potato starch (enough so it's not so sticky). Cut into 8 equal pieces, using a bench scraper or sharp knife covered in potato starch after each cut. Flatten out each piece a little more with your hands or a small rolling pin, working quickly, you want the dough to stay hot. Add a Tbsp or 2 of the bean filling to the middle of each piece and wrap the dough up around the filling, pinching together to seal well. The sealed part is the bottom of each daifuku. They can be wrapped in plastic wrap to stay fresh and freeze/thaw very well.

Plum Pudding for Christmas

Before I forget what I did here, I better write it down, because it was delicious.

I happen to have a pudding mold (of course I do) but this is unnecessary, you can use a heatproof bowl with a tight lid

Ingredients

• 3 c lightly packed down crumbs from good white bread with the crusts on (about one half of a 1 lb loaf of bread, crumb-ified in the food processor)
• 1 c each: black raisins, golden raisins, and prunes, chopped in the food processor
• 1-1/3 c dark brown sugar (I like Muscovado sugar from India Tree)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp mace
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c butter, melted
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 c bitter orange marmalade (seville orange marmalade from Trader Joe's works great)
• 1/3 c spiced rum
• 1/2 c cognac, heated on the stove before attempting to flambe
• Sprigs of greenery like juniper and holly, optional

Procedure

Toss the bread crumbs in a large mixing bowl with the prunes, raisins, sugar, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and salt.

Then toss with the melted butter, and finally with the eggs, almond extract, orange marmalade, and rum.

Pack the pudding mixture into the greased steaming container (either a pudding mold with a tight fitting lid, or a bowl with a tight fitting lid) and cover with a piece of greased foil and snap the lid over the foil. Set the container in a stock pot, or whatever you will be steaming in, and add enough water to come a third of the way up the sides of the pudding. Cover the steaming pot tightly and bring to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer, and steam about 6 hours. Check every hour or so to make sure you're not losing too much water and top off if necessary.

Don't unmold it yet, it can be kept in the fridge about 4 months to mature. I made mine 2 days before and it was still delicious. Day of, bring it out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temp before unmolding the pudding. I decorated mine on a cake plate with holly and juniper, and set it out for decoration.

When ready to flambe, heat the cognac in a saucepan on the stove until hot but not boiling and pour the hot cognac into a sturdy pyrex measuring cup with a spout. Grab a long match and head to the table, hitting the lights on your way.

Pour some of the cognac on the pudding and ignite with the match, then pour the rest of the cognac on the pudding, allowing the stream to ignite. Don't worry if the flames crawl up into the pyrex, just keep pouring steadily- when it's empty, it will continue to burn inside the cup, but will soon go out- or you can blow it out like a big baby (me).

The holly catches fire. No biggie.

French Toast Bread Pudding

Don't take them out before they're brown or they'll collapse too much, like souffles

This can be made as one big pudding, but the individual ones are very versatile and look more special.

Ingredients: 

(per 2 big muffin tins/4 regular size muffin tins)

1 burger bun, torn into 1” chunks

2 eggs

1/2 c. milk

1/2 c. cream

1 Tbsp. sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

pinch nutmeg

pinch cinnamon

pinch orange zest

2 Tbsp. raisins (golden is nice)

2 Tbsp. chopped pecans

Warm maple syrup 

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 350.

Butter 2 of the muffin tin spots if you’re using giant muffin tins, or 4 if you’re using regular size.

Put down a layer of bread chunks, then some raisins, then some more bread and top with more raisins.

Whisk the eggs, spices, vanilla, and sugars together in a medium bowl. Add milk and cream and whisk some more. Pour this custard mixture over the bread chunks.

Make sure bread gets moistened completely, cover and weight down the bread a little. Allow to soak for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle pecans on top, and bake for 30 minutes, until brown and puffed.

Allow to cool a little before serving with warm maple syrup.

ProTips

• Be careful when you press down on the bread to moisten that you don’t overflow your muffin tin.
• Make sure these are good and browned when you pull them out. If you pull them out when they’re too underdone, they’ll collapse a lot as they cool.
• Maple syrup is not maple flavored syrup or pancake syrup (basically flavored corn syrups). It comes from a sugar maple tree and has one ingredient: Maple Syrup. Grade B is more flavorful and darker than Grade A- kind of counter intuitive, but I prefer the Grade B syrup.
• To turn this into a dessert, serve with whipped cream, ice cream, or creme anglaise. Melted vanilla ice cream is essentially creme anglaise, that fancy whitish custardy sauce many plated desserts are served with. The microwave and some good vanilla ice cream make a really quick creme anglaise, which is awesome on this bread pudding.
• Variations besides raisin & pecan: dark chocolate chunks and orange marmalade, white chocolate chunks and dried cranberries, cream cheese chunks and fresh berries (blueberries, raspberries and/or strawberries)

Savory Baked Egg in Tomato

With a Tangeringe Mimosa, Roasted Leek Hash,
House-cured Bacon,
and French Toast Bread Pudding

This recipe scales really really well, so if you’ve got family coming for breakfast and brunch, this is a great choice. On the other end of the spectrum, this is an easy, mostly hands off, thing to make for one (or two; hubba hubba!) in the morning.

Ingredients

1 tomato with a fat bottom

1 egg

1 tsp grated Parmesan

pinch salt

pinch pepper

herbs for garnish

Procedure

Preheat oven to 425.

Slice the top off the tomato, and carefully scrape out the pulp, but don’t dig too deep at the bottom.

Sprinkle the insides with salt, pepper, and cheese, turning and shaking, so the cheese gets on the sides too.

Spray a baking sheet with olive oil/Pam and set the tomato on the baking sheet. Crack an egg into the cavity.

Bake for 20 minutes for soft but thick yoks, adjust by 5 mins in either direction depending on how done you like your eggs.

Sprinkle with desired herbs and serve.

ProTips

• Serve these on a bed of hash to soak up eggy tomato goodness.
• If you’re doing a big batch of these, they may take more time. Just check for doneness by jiggling the pan a little.
• Depending on your mood or what you’re serving these with, you can vary these with the herbs you choose to add at the end. Oregano and basil are lovely for an Italian tomato egg; Mexican oregano, cilantro, and chili powder are great for a Mexi egg; thyme and marjoram make a good French egg. Fresh herbs are better, but dry are just fine for this (except cilantro- for the love of all that is holy, never buy dried cilantro. WTF is wrong with you!?)

Tangerine Mimosa

Brunchy goodness

If you like mimosas, shake it up a bit by using tangerine juice instead of the usual orange juice. You can juice your own, or buy a little container of tangerine juice in the produce section of your grocery store. If it’s too tart, add more Chambord.

Ingredients

3 oz. Champagne

1 oz. tangerine juice

splash of Chambord

raspberry for garnish

Procedure

Add to a champagne glass in this order: Champagne, juice, chambord. Garnish with raspberry and drink that sucka!

ProTips

• Use Asti Spumanti (an Italian sparkling wine) for when people think they don’t like Champagne, it’s sweeter.
• Only sparkling white wine from Champagne, France is actually “Champagne.” Everything else is sparkling wine.
• Cava is sparkling wine from Spain and is a good value usually.
• “Brut” means dry, and is pronounced “broot.” The opposite of that is “Sec,” or sweet. “Demi” means “a little.” So “demi sec” on a sparkling
• wine label means it’s a little sweeter than brut. And “Extra Brut” means it’s a pretty tart/dry sparkling wine, with minimal sweetness.

Margarita Perfecto

These are not for the faint of heart, it turns out

Margarita Mix is gross, and that's not how we do.

Ingredients

4 parts Awesomest Tequila you can get

4 parts Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice (from about 4 limes save the corpses)

4 parts Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice (from 1 orange)

2 parts Cointreau

1 part Grand Marnier

ice cubes

kosher salt

Lime wedges to garnish

Procedure

Squeeze/wipe lime corpse around glass rims and press into kosher salt. 

Fill salt rimmed glasses with ice.

Combine juices, Cointreau, and Tequila in a cocktail shaker and shake until the ice sounds different. 

Strain over ice into the salted glasses, float Grand Marnier, on the top, and garnish with a lime slice.

ProTips

• Buy bags of limes and store in the freezer. To defrost, zap for 30 seconds in the microwave (maybe twice). Beware, your limes will now be very juicy because the ice crystals ruptured all the membranes holding the juice. Awesome!
• You’ll notice this recipe has very few actual ingredients, which means it’s REALLY important they’re all the best you can get. You’re saving a bundle drinking at home already, so buy yourself some nice tequila, k?
• If you need to make a pitcher of these, look in the produce section for fresh squeezed orange juice (to spot the real deal, it will look separated, with water on top and pulp at the bottom probably) and consider using limeade if you can find it (less added sweetener, the better), don’t use those weird plastic limes though.

White Sauce for Fish or Feesh Tacos

Feesh Taco (fried tofu)

Ingredients

1 part Mayo (I use vegenaise when I'm veganizing this)

2 parts Yogurt (I use So Delicious cultured coconut "yogurt" when I'm veganizing this too)

squeeze Lime Juice 

1 garlic clove, minced

big pinch Salt 

dash Hot sauce or Adobo (Open a can of chipotle chiles en adobo and dig out a teaspoon of the sauce- that's adobo)

Procedure

Just mix it all together and put on your fish tacos, or your feesh tacos (my fake vegan version with fried tofu replacing the fish)

Thoughts on Taco Assembly

Thanks to Jennifer Jean Lee for taking such great photos of my class!

Taco assembly is obviously not rocket science, but there are some things that will make the process go more smoothly. 

• If you want hot tacos, don’t put them on cold plates. You can warm plates in a warm oven. 
• Get all of your toppings, sauces, tortillas and sides ready, within easy reach, in order, room temp or hot as appropriate. Mise en Place! 
• The order of operations should be: Tortilla, meat, sauce, veggies. Assemble them all the same, uniformity is more striking than each taco being a special snowflake. 
• Don’t get cute and put lettuce, cheddar shreds, or sour cream on these- Tapatio/Cholula or Arbol salsa and a squeeze of fresh lime is all that authentic tacos need. 
• If plating, you can prop two tortillas up “back to back” or wrap in non-absorbent paper. Alternatively, serve family style with tacos all in a line, using the tacos to hold each other up in taco formation. 
• You are not 5 and your foods can touch each other, food looks stupid segregated on a plate.

Apartment-Style "Grilled" Mahi-Mahi

Resting the fish lets it complete its cooking

If I’m making this, I’m almost certainly making fish tacos, but there’s no reason you can’t just eat these puppies as a fish dinner with some veggies and a starch. And the “Apartment-style” means we’re not even grilling, technically- it’s just an easy differentiation between a battered and fried piece of taco fish.

Ingredients

1/4 lb Mahi Mahi per 2 people

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Paprika

Lime juice

Procedure

Preheat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat.

Take the fish out of the fridge and drizzle on some olive oil, sprinkle on plenty of salt, pepper, and a little paprika. Rub the goodies into the fish.

Spray with non-stick spray if you’re chicken, (but if you were generous with the olive oil, this is unnecessary) and add the fish. DO NOT COVER IT and don’t move it once it hits the pan, play it where it lies.

Cook for 4 minutes, and look to see that the edges are turning opaque. Gently prod to test to see if the fish is still stuck to the bottom. If it releases easily, flip it. If it gives you any resistance, quit your prodding and leave it alone for another minute and before checking again.

Once it’s flipped, cook it for half the time it was on the first side. So if it took 5 minutes for the first side, give the second side 2 and a half minutes and prod to see if it releases. Check again every minute. When it releases, it’s ready to come out.

Take the fish out of the pan and let it rest on a plate or cutting board for 3 minutes to complete cooking. 

ProTips

• Be ready to add the fish immediately after you add non-stick spray or it will burn and taste terrible. Fish ready in one hand, spray with the other.
• Fish doesn’t need to be cooked all the way, so if it’s flakey throughout, it won’t be moist. Don’t do that. Undercooked fish is almost always better than overcooked fish.
• If your fish smells fishy, it’s going to be gross. Mahi-mahi especially is a virtually odorless fish- it should smell like the ocean. If you can’t get fresh fish from a real fish guy (not the supermarket), buy flash frozen fish. These were caught and frozen immediately, so are technically very “fresh.” Defrost in the fridge TWO nights before using.
• A splatter guard over your pan will greatly help with your place not smelling like fish at all. It’s those little splatters of oil that are to blame, not the fish itself.

The Quintessential San Diego Summer Meal 

For Authentic Fish Tacos, assemble in this order:

Tortilla

Fish

White Sauce

Cabbage

Onion

Tomato

Cilantro

Serve with lime wedge

Apartment-Style Carne Asada (Tacos)

You may not have a grill, but you probably have a broiler (you may not know where it is, but that’s a different problem) and can use it to great effect to make delicious meat.

Ingredients

1 lb. hanger steak, flat iron steak, or ask your butcher what they've got for you if you're making carne asada 

1/4 c. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

Juice of 2 limes

1 Tbsp salt 

1 Tbsp dried oregano

1 Tbsp ground coriander

1 Tbsp ground cumin

Many grinds of Pepper

Pinch cayenne

Procedure

Toss everything but the meat in a big ziploc, and mush to combine. Open the bag and insert meat. Zip up most of the way, then roll to push out air and zip closed. Marinate overnight or for as long as you have, you non-planning ahead slacker!

Preheat your broiler for a few minutes, and while that’s happening, line a BROILER SAFE pan with foil. Lay the meat out on the foil and broil for 7 minutes or so (you want some charred bits, more than you think are reasonable), then take it out, flip it and broil for another 6 minutes, until it looks awesome.

Take it out and leave it the F alone. Seriously. Don’t touch it, don’t even look at it for 5 more minutes. Think this step isn’t necessary? Why’d I write it then? Your meat is still cooking, this is part of the cooking process, so if you bothered to follow the directions and cook it, freaking DO this.

Chop it up into desired shapes and sizes and OMNOMNOM.

Taking a first pass at slicing against the grain on the bias

ProTips

• Slice against the grain. Always. If you’re going to cut in both directions, use a diamond pattern, rather than square, so you’re never cutting directly with the grain.
• If you do have a barbecue, by all means, use it. Instead of the broiler, just grill over high heat (covered) for 6 minutes per side. Flip it once and don’t poke it or smash it.
• For your carne asada tacos, toss diamond shaped chunks with arbol salsa to make a spicy delicious meat mixture.

Tacos 101

For Traditional Carne Asada Tacos, assemble in this order:

Tortilla

Carne Asada (I like to toss the meat with the onion and salsa before putting in the tortilla)

Chile de Arbol Salsa

Onion

Cilantro

Serve with lime wedge

Quick and Easy Black Beans

I'm ashamed to call this a recipe

Delicious, but embarrassingly simple. Mumble about how complicated they are to make when you bring these to a party and get asked for the recipe.

Ingredients

1 can of black beans

1/2 c. of your favorite salsa from a jar

2 Tbsp Panela cheese (omit to make vegan)

thin strips of red chile (optional)

Procedure

Dump in can of beans and salsa and stir to combine. Cover, and heat until bubbling, stirring occasionally to make sure beans are not scorching at the bottom. When bubbling, turn heat to low and check consistency- if you want beans thicker, remove lid and cook until desired consistency is reached. If thinner/looser beans are required, add water and stir until heated through again.

Transfer to plates or a serving dish and garnish with crumbled Panela. Top with vibrant red chile strips, if using.

ProTips

• Alternative salsa suggestions: Tomatillo (green), Chipotle, Peach Habañero
• Also good garnished with cilantro

Enselada de Elote

For easier eating than on the cob, try this!

Elote means “corn,” but it’s synonymous with how corn is prepared at markets and fairs all over San Diego. If you’ve seen the tables near the corn on the cob at the fair, covered in condiments and wondered what they hell they were for, they were for dressing your corn up, Mexi-style. Now in a salad!

Ingredients

1/2 c. mayo (use vegenaise if that's your thing)

1 lime, juiced

1 Tbsp. chili powder

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 c. grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano (omit to make vegan)

1/2 bag of frozen corn (thawed)

1/4 red onion, diced

2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

Salt to taste

Procedure

In a large bowl, add mayo, lime, chili powder, garlic and cheese. Stir to combine.

Add remaining ingredients and gently toss to mix through and coat with mayo mixture.

Transfer to plates or a serving dish and AAAAAAAWWWWWW YEEEEEEEAAAAAH!

ProTips

• Great to make up to 1 day ahead and take to parties.
• Trader Joe’s sells awesome frozen grilled corn, highly recommended for this application.

Restaurant-Style Guacamole

Little plate on big plate for much improved presentation over plastic tub and bag of chips

Great guacamole doesn’t need a lot of fussing, or mystery flavor packets from the supermarket, just a little prep and you too can be making authentic and delicious guac just like you’d get for ten bucks at a nice restaurant.

Ingredients

For each avocado:

1 Tbsp. small dice tomato, drained

1 Tbsp. small dice red onion

1 Tbsp. small dice red pepper

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro leaves

1 tsp. fresh squeezed lime juice

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. finely minced serrano/jalapeno (optional)

Procedure

As you prep ingredients, put them in a bowl (not the serving bowl, you savage!): Dice your onion, add to the bowl; dice the pepper, add to the bowl; and so on, until the LAST thing you add is the avocado. 

Avocados should be sliced through their poles to the pit, and twist to separate. Set aside the half with the pit, and get to work on the other half- slice through the fruit along its length, to the skin, but not through it. Turn the avocado in your hand and repeat through the width of the fruit. You should be slicing a crosshatch pattern in the fruit, while leaving the skin intact. Set that half aside. Position the other half on the counter and give the seed a good whack with your knife, so it embeds in the pit. Pick up that half and twist to remove the pit. Repeat cross hatching pattern with your newly pitless avocado half.

Fold the avocado in half over the bowl and squeeze out the chunks, like you’re squeezing toothpaste from a tube- squeeze from the bottom. Now all you have to do is mix it all up with a fork, mashing any chunks that are too big for your liking. Just keep mashing until you like what you see. Taste it and add more salt, cilantro, or lime juice as necessary (if you don’t know what it needs, it needs salt!), when it’s good, and only then, spoon it into the serving dish.

ProTips

• Recipe is designed to scale! Big party = big guac 
• Salt, lime, cilantro and onion are key- everything else is nice to have. 
• Eyeball this one, don’t bust out measuring tools.
• For max juice from citrus, zap in microwave for 30 seconds before you cut them in half OR roll them on the counter to squish and free juice.
• To get leaves without stems from a bunch of cilantro, shave that puppy!
• To remove the pit from your knife, pinch the blade behind the pit and it will pop right off. 
• To drain diced tomatoes, salt them and throw them in a little bowl on a folded paper towel to soak up the liquid. I usually prep them first so they have maximum drainage time so they don’t make the guac watery.

First, locate the teats on your cashew...

I've been buying almond, coconut, and/or soy milk instead of milk for quite some time now. Recently I concluded that making nut milk shouldn't be that hard and googled around for guidance. I think I have this process pretty streamlined, have stuff to say, and am ready to document it, so here goes:

Cashew Milk
Cashew milk is flipping delicious and easy to make, so if you want to try making nut milk, I highly recommend starting with cashew. If you have a kick ass blender (vita-mix, blendtec, etc.) you won't even need a nut milk bag/fine mesh to strain it, because you won't need to strain it at all.

1. Get RAW un-dicked around with cashews. No salt, no whatever else. I buy them in the bulk bin now. You will need about 1 cup of cashews to make 3 cups of cashew milk.
2. Soak them in plenty of water for a few hours or even overnight. You can soak them in the pitcher of your blender, so you don't dirty another thing in the kitchen. 
3. Strain and rinse them off.
4. Add them back to the blender pitcher and add just enough fresh cold water to cover. I use filtered water from my Brita for this.
5. Blend on your blender's juice setting (my Blendtec starts out slow, then beats the crap out of them for maybe a minute and a half on this setting).
6. Behold your cashew cream! Depending on what you're up to, you might need to stop here. More on that later.
7. Add in the rest of the water (up to the 3 cup mark is a good place to start) and put the lid back on securely. I shake the pitcher at this point to basically wash down the sides.
8. Blend again on the whole juice setting.
9. Check it out! It looks like milk! 

At this point it tastes very very neutral, so give it a taste and adjust for the consistency you like. If it's too creamy, just add more cold filtered water. I also like to buzz in a pinch of sea salt, a tiny bit of maple syrup, a tiny bit of vanilla extract, and a tiny pinch of cinnamon. If you go overboard on that stuff, it tastes like Horchata, which is damn awesome, as well.

If you find, as I have, that you'll want to make a 3 cup batch of this every week, I recommend soaking a big batch of cashews all at once, then portioning them out into ziploc bags for the freezer. If you don't want to wait 20 minutes while they thaw a little, they can be zapped in the microwave for 30 seconds when you're ready to make milk, so the whole process from using pre-soaked, frozen cashews takes only five minutes.

Other ideas
Double Honey Nut Cheerios 
Flavor your nut milk with honey and a pinch of salt and pour over your Honey Nut Cheerios. OMG Sweet Jesus.
Honey Nut Semi Freddo
Make honey nut semi-freddo by flavoring the cashew cream with plenty of honey and a good pinch of salt and freezing it. It should be too sweet to eat before you freeze it because freezing dulls the sweetness quite a bit. I stirred it once or twice as it was freezing too. This was amazingly good. I think I'm going to try this with hazelnut cream and chocolate next.
Coffee Cream
Coffee cream can be made by adding less water than when making milk, and can, of course be flavored however you like.
Chocolate Cashew Milk
Mix 1 Tbsp. agave nectar with 1 Tbsp. cocoa powder and a pinch of salt until it looks like Hershey's chocolate syrup. Add a little cashew milk to thin and stir until dissolved. Add more cashew milk until it tastes the way you want.
Delicious Cashew Spread
Start with 1 cup of extra thick cashew cream and add 2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast, chopped fresh herbs, cracked black pepper, and garlic (or any combination of that stuff- this combo tastes a lot like Boursin cheese). Awesome on crackers, crudite, and baked potatoes.

Creamy coffee!

Crepes

This recipe is my favorite crepe recipe because it produces the absolute thinnest crepes AND the batter doesn't need to rest because it doesn't use flour and so mixing it doesn't produce gluten. It's adapted from The Cake Bible and I've used it for years with great success. (Please pardon my bed-head, it was Sunday morning and I'd just rolled out of bed into the kitchen.)

Strawberry jam filled crepe getting dressed with whipped cream; Lemon sugar crepe; Nutella impostor crepe

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 c milk
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
3/4 c cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt


For Sweet Crepes:
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp Grand Marnier


For Savory Crepes:
handful of rough chopped fresh herbs
or
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard


Clarified butter for cooking the crepes (just nuke butter until melted and scrape off/fish out the white bits, leaving clear yellow goodness)


Procedure
Place the ingredients (except clarified butter), in the order given, in a blender and blend at high speed for 30 seconds.


Heat a crepe pan on medium-high heat until hot enough to sizzle a drop of water. Brush the pan lightly with clarified butter and pour 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of the pan. Immediately tilt the pan to the left and then down and around to the right so that the batter moves in a counterclockwise direction, swirling to cover the entire pan.


For the thinnest possible crepes, pour excess batter immediately back into the blender with the rest of the batter. So, to recap: Pour in batter, swirl around fast, quickly dump extra back where it came from and return to heat. This should all happen quickly- otherwise, adjust the thing you're using to pour in your batter so you're pouring in exactly the right amount. 1/4 cup measure giving you too much batter in your pan? Try another scooper that's smaller.
Cook until the top loses it's shine and starts to dull and the edges begin to look dry and lacey, about 20 seconds. Use a small metal spatula to lift the edge, check to see if the crepe is speckled with brown underneath, then flip the crepe with your fingers and cook for about another 15 seconds.

I have a blue steel crepe pan. No Really. I use my offset icing spatula for crepes, it's thin and easy to handle.

You can fill them however you like but I like mine brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with sugar and a squeeze of lemon.

Breakfast of Champions!

Meatstravaganza

Meatstravaganza 2009

New Year's Day is the traditional day for Tristan's Meatstravaganza and it's my homage to the traditional meal my parents made for the new year. It's the day I bust out the white tablecloth and the whole 9 yards, and this year's feast marked the 13th annual Meatstravaganza. Whether it's been on folding card tables and BYOC (bring your own chair), or in a real dining room with enough chairs for everyone, this is one meal that I. Will. Cook. every year come hell or high water in my life (lord knows 2008 and 2009 almost didn't happen).

The star of the show is the Prime rib roast, which is backed up with all the traditional English fixins'- au jus, horseradish cream, yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and roasted carrots and parsnips with gremolata. Dessert is chocolate souffle.

In today's post, I'll focus on documenting the roast, jus and horseradish cream.

Plan for 20ish mins per pound for medium rare, and if you want anything other than medium rare, you're nuts. Aim for 130 degrees when you pull it out of the oven. I like to roast it super duper slow- in a 300 degree oven. I don't brown it all over in a skillet first because its an unwieldy monster, so for the last 20 mins or so of roasting I up the heat to 400 to brown it and also get the oven hot for the next stuff to go in (Yorkshire Pudding and roasted carrots).

This roast was from Da-Le Ranch in Lake Elsinore. It was 4 ribs and little over ten pounds. It would have served 10 or 11 people with no leftovers, but that would just be tragic for the morning's hash. It was cut from the small end of the roast and was tied and dry aged. 

Ingredients

For the roast

• 4 rib standing roast (~10 lbs.)
• 10 cloves garlic
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. Kosher salt or sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. cracked pepper
• 8 sprigs thyme
• 4 sprigs rosemary

For the jus

• ~2 c. Red wine
• ~2 c. Beef stock

For the horseradish cream

• 1 c. whipping cream
• 1 horseradish root
• 2 tsp. cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. honey
• salt & white pepper to taste

Equipment

• Roasting pan
• Roasting rack (you can substitute old vegetables like onions, carrots & celery to set the meat on top of out of it's juices)
• Carving board with a well to catch juices
• Food processor if using fresh horseradish root

Procedure

Ready to rock-n-roast

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Smash 10 cloves of garlic with the heel of your chef's knife or something heavy. Cut up 3 Tbsps of butter into half inch cubes. 

To prepare the beef for roasting, cover it in a couple tablespoons of Fleur de Sel (French Sea Salt) and cracked black pepper all over it. Don't go too crazy on the cut ends because then the end pieces will be too seasoned. Place on an adjustable rack in the roasting pan and top with thyme and rosemary and dot the top with the garlic and butter.

Put the probe thermometer in the center of the roast and pop the thing in the oven.

Don't baste it. Don't keep looking at it. Yes, the garlic smells like its burning. Its OK.

Remember to turn up the heat to 400 during the last 20 mins until the meat gets to 130 degrees.

Take it out of the oven and transfer the roast to a carving board to rest, preferably on something that will catch the juices. When you are ready to serve it, make sure everything else is already on the table before you carve the roast. It should be the last thing to happen and allows you time to seat everyone, parade around with your meat on display, then carve and serve.

Jus
After taking the roast out and transferring it to a carving board, take the rack out of the pan, dump whatever is in there into a fat separator (I pretty much got 100% fat with burnt garlic bobbing around in it) and set the pan on the stove so it spans 2 burners. Turn both burners to medium high and throw a nearby glass of red wine at the pan to deglaze it. Use a spatula to scrape up all the goodies stuck to the bottom of the pan. Slosh in some beef broth and reduce for a few minutes. Keep throwing wine and broth into the pan and reducing until you're ready to serve or you feel like it tastes good and you've got enough jus. Add any collected juices from the resting roast, strain with a sieve and pour into a serving thing to pass at the table.

Fresh Horseradish Whipped Cream

This works just as well with prepared horseradish in a jar, but there were fresh roots available, so I picked one up. While reading up on preparing fresh horseradish, I came across a tip: if you grate the horseradish in the food processor, don't stick your face over the bowl when you take the lid off. Good advice. Did I follow it? No.
OMG, it burns.

Grate horseradish, then process fine in food processor. Combine 3 Tbsps of horseradish with 2 tsp cider vinegar, 1 tsp honey and a pinch of salt and pepper. Whip some whipping cream and mix in horseradish mixture. Season and add more horseradish if necessary.

One last tip...when you run out of wine at your house and the Meatstravaganza runs long, this could happen:

Please don't ask why I had a 40 of Colt 45 in the fridge- it was a rough year.
Also, it really classes it up by pouring it into the Riedel crystal stemware, no?