Random Link: Aug 2015

-love the embroidery added to the logos. via quipsologies

http://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/bjork-collaborator-james-merrys-incredible-embroidery-creations

-a friend of mine is painting an abstract painting every day for a year and posting on Facebook. Love the project.
https://www.facebook.com/AbstractYear

-for all the star war fans. These are beautiful. via fubiz.net
http://www.fubiz.net/en/2015/07/15/star-wars-japanese-prints/

-tried a new recipe for coffee crumb cake with leftover fruits from my jamming and baking for the restaurant that I had--blueberries, peaches and apples. Came out great. Will post my result later. via julia's album
http://juliasalbum.com/2014/06/apple-blueberry-peach-coffee-cake/

-been having issues with dirty coffee mugs in the sink at work (not just one, like 6+). Yes, disgusting. But maybe I should have just made art with them and made an instagram acct. These are fun. via quipsologies
https://instagram.com/thecoffeemonsters

-been a little sideline with a wrist pain, so not too much knitting for me. I found a fiber podcast to inspire me to get better soon. 
http://woolful.com/category/woolful-podcast/

-one last link: love that it was all handmade. Her bouquet is great. 
http://katedaviesdesigns.com/2015/08/09/a-handmade-wedding/

Home News Tribune Best of the Best Readers Choice Contest 2015 Middlesex County

Please consider voting for Cafe Bua in the Home News Tribune Best of the Best Readers Choice Contest 2015 Middlesex County. Categories to consider for us: Brunch, Burger, BYOB, Casual Dining, Family Friendly, Seafood, and Thai Food. We appreciate all of you support. Thank you!

Here the link to the voting:
http://app.secondstreetapp.com/l/Home-News-Tribune-Best-of-the-Best-2015

Pie, Mixed Berries!

Haven't made pie in while. I have some visitors and some sweet berries at the house. Decide to surprise them when they get back from the day of adventure with mixed berry crumble pie. Strawberry, blueberry blackberry and raspberry [the blackberries and raspberries are frozen in my freezer] mix, I love this combination. 

Prepped the strawberries last night while the my blueberry peach jam was cooking. Before I started the crust this morning I went out for a morning walk. What a beautiful day. Even got to see a heron by the river. 

For my crust, I use Smitten Kitchen's buttery crust recipe . It is my go to recipe for pies, sooo buttery.

2 sticks of butter in this crust

all the ingredients are prepped and ready to become a pie

All done mixing, this looks good. Now for a good chill down in the refrigerator. A quick shower for me and run out to my farmers market.

can you see the butter chunks in the dough. yum!

I read up on how to avoid soggy bottom crust. Most article suggest blind baking the crust. I put it in a 450º oven for 8 minutes with parchment paper and pie weights [I use a lentils] then remove the weights and continue to bake for about 5–8 minutes more. Forgot to take a shot. Multi-tasking, making marinade for tonight dinner. Let cool while you mix up the filling

ready for the crumb . . .

. . . into the oven

Juicy, right out of the oven

Glad it didn't spill

For the filling, I had made a recipe a while back that I can't find anymore. It came out really nice, just thick enough that it wasn't not runny all over. 

UPDATE: Still VERY JUICY and it ran over the crust on the side to the bottom crust. Soggy. This is what I'll do next time. I'll mix the fruit with sugar and let it macerate, then drain the juice. Up the corn starch to 4 T and mix it in with the cinnamon. The taste was good, just the right sweet but I'd think it needed a 1/2 t more of cinnamon. The crumb was great. Maybe I'll make this one more time, to see if my adjustments work. Stay tune.

Here's a link from King Arthur Flour on pie filling thickeners that I thought was helpful after the fact. 

Preheat oven to 375º

Filling

6 c  mixed berries, I used 2 c strawberries, chopped, 2 c blueberries, 1 c blackberries and 1 c raspberries

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c corn starch

1 t cinnamon

2T butter, chopped up into small pieces 

Mix together all the ingredient for the filling except for the butter. Pour filling into the your crust then add the butter pieces to the top. 

Topping

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 c old fashion oatmeal

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1 stick butter, chopped into smaller pieces

1 c walnuts, chopped

Mix together all the ingredients for the topping till you get a crumbly appearance. Add to the top of the pie.

Bake for an hour, crumb should be golden brown and filling should be bubbling. Let rest for at least an 1/2 hour. Can be serve at room temp or even cold. 

Pickled Veggies and Trying to Take to a Better Shot

Starting my prep on the red and yellow carrots

My first pickles of the seasons. Finally got out to Rutgers Garden Farmers market last Friday. Chickadee Creek Farms had some red and yellow carrots, fennel and beets. All my favorites. I decided to make Smitten Kitchen's pickled veggie sandwich slaw, the carrots will go great in this recipe. I've made this several time with great success, I posted about it here. I also thought this would be a perfect recipe to practice shooting with the borrowed camera. I hope I'm getting better. I need to start applying it to the restaurant shots.

Musubi for Lynn

o-musubi made with barazushi. YUM!

The other day I posted a picture on facebook of a picture of my lunch musubi made with some barazushi I made with hapa rice (brown and white rice). Barazushi is sushi rice with seasoned veggies. I used dried shitake mushrooms, carrots and string  beans with pickled ginger.

An friend from my old neighborhood who now lives in Texas saw the picture and asked for the recipe. I decide instead of just email it to just her, post it to share with whoever would like. It's a bit complicated but so good. I hope the recipe doesn't scare her off. Enjoy!

Barazushi Musubi
Makes about 6–8 musubis depending on the size

Sushi rice, see recipe below
Seasoned  Shitake Mushroom and Carrots, see recipe below 
1/4 to 1/2 c string beans, julienne and blanch
1/4 c pickled ginger, sliced thin
nori
salt

Sushi Rice
3 c of cooked rice, short or medium grain rice [I mixed half of white and brown rice]
1/2c rice vinegar
6 T sugar
1 1/2 T salt
Combine vinegar, sugar and salt and heat till sugar and salt is dissolved. Cool vinegar mixture. Then toss with hot rice. Don't over mix or mash the rice.

Seasoned  Shitake Mushroom and Carrots
6-8 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water until tender, squeeze out excess water then sliced thin
1/2 c julienne carrots
1 1/2 c dashi (you can dried dashi base, I used hondashi I got as the Asian food store, if you can't find it, I think you probably can substitute water or vegetable stock)
2 T sale
12 salt
1T Shoyu

Combine dashi, sake and sugar with mushrooms and carrots and cook for  5–6 minutes. Add salt and shoyu and cook over low heat until tender and sauce evaporates. 

Barazushi
Combine sushi rice, mushrooms, carrots, string beans and ginger. Be careful not to over mix so rice doesn't come a sticky mess. At this point, you can serve the rice. You also can add thinly slice nori and thin one egg omelet sliced thin.

Musubi (rice ball)
You can make with plain rice and add a little filling in the middle. My favorite umeboshi ( pickled salted plum). It goes perfect with rice and the nori. You also can add pickle ginger or seasoned tuna. 
Cut nori into strips of 1-1 1/2" strips [I used giant strip because I was too lazy to cut at 6am in the morning)
The amount of rice depends on how big you want it. I think I use about 1/2 c

Wet your hands, sprinkle salt [with the barazushi rice, I sprinkled just a little because it is seasoned already]. Place the hot/warm rice in salt hands. At this point, you can add a filling into the center of the rice mound. Then start shaping it into triangular shape by cupping and pressing your hands around the rice. Once you get it into the shape you want, add the strip of nori around the rice and press the into the musubi. 

And there you have it, the perfect hand food! 

Summer Jams

What I've been making so far with summer season fruits. This is why I slave over a hot stove stirring and canning in the summer heat. Thank goodness for central air. 

Peach Butter
Fruit: 4+ pounds (about 9 medium size peaches)

Got these peaches for $0.99/lb. 

I tried a new technique to make to make it easier for me. I pitted and quarter the peaches. Then toss them into blender and pureed them. Measured out the puree and added half the amount in sugar. It came out to 6 cups and I added 3 cups of sugar. I put everything in the crock pot on low leaving it for 7 hours, stirring occasionally. Half way through I cracked open the lid so it would thicken up a bit. Before I put them in bottles I added a juice of a small lemon to brighten up the taste. And that's it, simple. 

Finish Product: a little over 3 pints.

Plum Jam
Fruit: 2 pint of sugar plum plus a bag of the mushy plums

Sugar Plums from the Rutgers Garden farmers markets

I love plum jam. So sweet and beautiful deep purple. The fruit vendor gave me the mushy plum for free when I mentioned I was making jam. The plums at perfect ripeness and were so sweet. [saved some for WG, I think he'll like these] 

beautiful deep purple

Finish Product: 2 pints and almost 3 1/2 pints out this batch.

Blueberry Jam

Fruit: 3 lbs Jersey blueberries

Local blueberries are in season and prices were so cheap. Made a batch of blueberry lemon jam. I used 3 cups of sugar and I added the zest and juice of one lemon at the very end. I forgot to get some pictures but this jam is a chunky with blueberries bit and lemon-y note. Very easy to make. Good first try at jamming. It's a great add to plain yogurt.

Finish Product: 2 pints and almost 3 1/2 pints out this batch.

Chimichurri

Wanted to eat steak [and not skirt steak from the restaurant] the other day. Went to see what the prices were at the market. I found a great price 2.89/lb but I realized that they were mis-labelled as pork. I wasn't quite sure what cut they were but I thought they were sirloin and decided to pick them up. Since I wasn't quite sure what cut, decided to make a marinade.

Looked up different types of marinades for sirloin steak and found a easy recipe for chimichurri from Omaha Steak . Of course, I didn't have all the ingredient and need to improvise.

smells so good

right of the grill and resting

Cimichurri adapted from Omaha Steak

4 cloves garlic, rough chopped

1 small bunch flat leaf parsley

2 c mint (asked for cilantro)

zest and juice of 2 lemons

1/2 c olive oil

1 t salt

1/2 t red pepper flakes

Add garlic, parsley, mint (or cilantro) and the zest and juice of the lemon. Turn on the processor and as the starts going stream in the oil. Add the salt and pepper flakes. You may want to adjust the salt and the lemon. Should look like pesto when it is done.

Reserve 1/2 cup of the sauce to serve with steak.

Add the sauce to the zip lock bag and toss the steaks in. Make sure the steaks are cover with sauce. Refrigerate till ready to grill your steaks. Omaha Steak recipe say marinate at least 15 minutes to 2 hours but I marinated it for 6 hours and it was delicious and tender.

I had 2 lbs of sirloin [I think] and there was more than enough marinade for at least 2 more pounds. And the next time I make this recipe, I will reserve a lot more sauce to use in a salad dressing. So good.