I added another recipe to my cooking notes, the rosemary and garlic focaccia that I almost always serve with the racks of lamb I just posted. It’s delicious, especially with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip the bread in. Click here and enjoy!
After many years of making this recipe, and having many people ask me for it, at long last here is the recipe for my racks of lamb that everybody just LOVES. Rosemary, thyme, garlic, pepper, olive oil, how could you go wrong?! Just click here!
Since I have a special guest coming into town tomorrow, I thought I should pull out all the stops and make some gourmet sandwich fodder, for a picnic on the beach. I settled on tri-tip steak, mainly because I’ve never tried cooking it before, but also because I have some good friends who serve tri-tip at their annual barbecue, and it always comes out good.
A long time ago I was watching an episode of Good Eats all about squash (or “pumpkin” for my friends down under), and Alton Brown made these very yummy looking butternut squash dumplings. Since it’s the season for squash and we have a bunch of them floating around, I decided to give this dumpling recipe a try. Instead of using butternut squash I decided to use acorn squash, since we have a few extra acorn squash that hadn’t been spoken for yet.
A while ago a friend sent me a link to an article called Vogue’s 8 Steps to Hamburger Perfection. The article is actually based on an interview with Jeffrey Steingarten, who frequently appears on Iron Chef America, and is highly entertaining primarily because he is just so disagreeable with everyone. He is mesmerizing to watch at times, because he is so inventive in devising ways to crush the spirits of other people.
Anyway, the article goes through and describes how to create “the perfect hamburger,” although it focuses primarily on the preparation of the meat patty. This is only one of many factors in preparing a perfect burger. But, I am also a bit obsessed about perfect hamburgers, and I had never tried grinding my own meat for making burgers, so I decided that it was worth giving this whole thing a try.
Some friends of mine recently received a food processor as a gift, and they were wondering what to make with it. I suggested mayonnaise, since homemade mayo is always tasty, but they weren’t so excited about that. Another good suggestion is cashew-nut butter or almond butter; the texture is just like peanut butter, but the flavor is amazingly rich.
Every time I think of peanut butter, I remember this one episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood where he made peanut butter. Or, at least, he tried to make peanut butter. His operating premise was that the name “peanut butter” was based on the actual ingredients for peanut butter. So, he threw a bunch of peanuts into a bag, added a stick of butter, and then proceeded to bash the crap out of it. The result wasn’t exactly peanut butter. I distinctly remember the scene - that big traffic light and the aquarium… I seem to recall him saying, “Well that didn’t work very well…”
I am glad that Mr. Rogers never tried to make butterflies.
About a week ago I tried some butternut squash soup from Trader Joe’s. I was so uninspired by it; the flavor is very subtle and mild. It couldn’t even stand up to the plain ol’ grilled cheese sandwich I had with the soup. Pitiful!
So, since there happen to be more than half a dozen whole butternut squashes around the house right now (stock up!), I decided to make my own.
It’s awesome, and very garlicky, which is great by me! Very easy to make, too.
I think I have finally figured out how to make good bagels. Our neighbor has a friend whose husband loves to bake, and he makes bagels very frequently. What he does is to make up the bagels and then put them in the refrigerator for a day or two, until they rise and get nice and plump. Fortunately there is a refrigerator out in the garage, and I can just leave my bagels in there for a couple of days, out of sight and out of mind.
Also, since I tend to make my bagels with 50% whole wheat flour (you know, to be healthy and all), I thought that using bread flour instead of all-purpose (AP) flour could also have a big impact. Whole wheat flour has less gluten than AP flour, so it isn’t able to rise as well as AP flour. Bread flour, however, takes it to a whole new level, containing even more gluten than AP flour! This means the bagels can rise better and hold more of the CO2 emitted by the yeast.
These were the two things I tried for the last batch of bagels, and they were hands down the best I have made. Unfortunately, they were so good that I didn’t really get any pictures of the finished bagels. Anyway, I just need to make a few more tweaks to the bagel recipe and then I think it will be a winner. At that point I’ll try to write up a page and put it on my website.
Today I tried roasting my own coffee beans. This all started a few months ago when Slashdot had a poll about what people drink in the morning, and all the coffee snobs basically said, “You really don’t know what a real cup of coffee tastes like until you try fresh-roasted beans.” This piqued my curiosity, so I bought some green coffee beans from the Red Door Cafe at Caltech, and I tried roasting them on the stove.
My mom got me a new coffee cup today:
Thanks mom. 
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