Honey Lemon Curd

There is essentially one lemon curd made with honey instead of sugar recipe on the web, which seems to be copied over and over. Based on the date, I think this is the original. Sara made a bunch of macaroons, so we're drowning in egg yolks right now, and we're trying to reduce processed sugar, so gave it a go. 8 yolks, 2/3 c juice, zest from the 3 lemons used plus 1 extra, salt, 1/3 c honey plus 2T cause it wasn't sweet enough, ~4T coconut oil at the end. Pretty good!

Lattkes

chicken, cranberry sauce, some brussels sprouts from under the bird, and Sara's lattkes
I ate alot of them... not a big fan of sour cream, but good otherwise.

Kale in the Limelight

Nice story from npr, prompted by the Eat More Kale/Chic-fil-A thing.

West Camino Cielo. Chilly.

depth of field

Lichen!

Homemade Cheese Preserved in Oil

The hope was to produce feta cheese preserved in olive oil. I ran into some hitches, though. First problem was my candy thermometer starts measuring temperature at 100 degrees, but the recipe wanted me to heat the milk to 86. Doh! I generally followed this recipe. It ended up as a soft white cheese, cream cheese-like. I drained it using a weight to reduce the moisture content, but it was still a heck of alot closer to cream cheese than feta. I packed it all into a 1/2 gallon jar and put some oil on top. Taste was really not too exciting. A couple of months later, including some more microbial activity cause it bubbled over some in the fridge, I decided to use it to saute veggies. Basically heating the 'cheese' caused it to separate into tasty butter-like stuff and some milk solids. Made for some pretty tasty cheese+peppers tacos, though I think I might just stick to ricotta from now on....

empty jar

Cheater Fish Tacos

Sara came up with this and it's genius. There's a company called la tortilla factory that makes a corn tortilla with wheat gluten. She made a tuna salad and it it in said tortillas. A proper baja fish taco is a white fish fried with a batter, served with mayo in a corn tortilla. Tuna with mayo and celery, etc on a corn + wheat tortilla REALLY reminded me of a fish taco. Epic!

Anthony Bourdain / OnionAV

good article

Landsat 5 is done, too

This might be too much of a coincidence. On the same day that Regis Philbin retired the USGS released a press release that the Landsat 5 satellite is being put out to pasture. AND, the press release was released during that final Live with Regis & Kelly show! hmmm......

Regis

I haven't watched the show in years, but there have been times in my life when I watched him daily. Fresh Air did a nice interview with him.

JTree Halloween 2011

We went out to the desert to avoid Halloween in IV. An excellent idea in theory, but people came there to party. Doh! Images are from my two olympus cameras. Full albums here, here.

White Tanks Campground

looks like a turtle poking out of its shell or something

sunset, 1st night

Queen Valley Mine area

sunset 2nd night

Sara carving a pumpkin

JTrees and boulder field

sausages and 'taters, pumpkin, cukes pickled in escabeche liquid

Hall of Horrors area

Key's View, wind farms in distance

Barker Dam area

White Tanks, last morning

Caviar Limes

Caviar limes are 25 cents a pop at the co-op. Looks nice on orange crème fraîche sherbet, no?

Bittman, the Santa Barbara Syndrome

"This kind of approach — grow what you can close to where you live and eat what you can grow — is obviously nothing new. (Even in my lifetime, I can remember seeing asparagus only in late spring, Macintosh apples in the fall and Empire apples — long keepers — through the winter.) What’s new is the lack of farmland, because much has been lost to sprawl or commodity crops, and farmers who can make it happen, farmers working on a scale between sustenance and industrial."

the whole article

One NUGGET in his article was a link to this article about the Santa Barbara syndrome. In our country we export 99% of what is grown here. AND IMPORT 95% OF FRUIT & VEGGIES THAT ARE EATEN!!! Holy Cow! David Cleveland, UCSB professor and garden friend is quoted thusly: "Picture two produce-laden tractor-trailers passing on the highway, one bringing food into the county; the other hauling it out."

Here's the UCSB press release on the Cleveland study

Santa Ynez Valley

Sara wanted to go wine tasting, I biked around the town of Santa Ynez. The bicycling backroads of central California book I had (from 1982) highlighted some roads that have a little more traffic on them now than they did back then, but it was fun none-the-less.

Mis-labeled Seafood

There's the normal BS of giving a nice name to an ugly fish -- the chilean sea bass / patagonian toothfish chintz, for example. The captain posted a link to this article on facebook, about fish being intentionally mislabeled as a more expensive fish in restaurants around Boston. I'm sure it happens everywhere. Interesting. Update: NPR interviewed the reporters.

Bittman on Friendly's

Apparently Friendly's is going out of business. I have fond memories of going to Friendly's to get sherbet, usually lime, after soccer games on Long Island. Good times. Mark Bittman at NYT has some memories, too. He also threw in some thoughts on fast food in America that were nice:

I remember the food as being real. And it probably was, because 50 (! I’m writing that?) years ago the industrialization of food had not been perfected. Now, “good” fast food is best defined by places like In-and-Out Burger, which is undeniably a teeny tiny level better than utter junk. But that doesn’t make it good.

Bombay Chile Pickle

so good. The recipe is apparently from My Bombay Kitchen by Niloufer Ichaporia King... the book is in the mail. Tigress put the recipe on her blog. I did a 2/3 version of the recipe (had 2lbs of peppers, and 1/2c ginger) and it filled 2 pint jars and most of a 1 c jar. Used a mix of sweet and not very hot chiles, and thus added chile powder. Used palm sugar.

3 pounds chiles – any kind, stemmed & chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 & 1/3 cups light sesame oil (not toasted, or another vegetable oil)
1 tablespoon whole brown mustard seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons fenugreek seed
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
3/4 cup garlic, chopped fine*
3/4 cup ginger, chopped fine*
1 teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)
1 & 1/2 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 & 3/4 cups white wine vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar (i use turbinado)
2 & 1/4 tablespoons sea salt - See more at: http://hungrytigress.com/2011/09/hot-damn-chile-pickle/#sthash.uNN37mJK.dpuf

 3 lbs chilies, stemmed, chopped
1 1/3 c olive oil
1T brown mustard seeds
1/2T fenugreek
1/2T cumin
1/2T fennel

3 pounds chiles – any kind, stemmed & chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 & 1/3 cups light sesame oil (not toasted, or another vegetable oil)
1 tablespoon whole brown mustard seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons fenugreek seed
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
3/4 cup garlic, chopped fine*
3/4 cup ginger, chopped fine*
1 teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)
1 & 1/2 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 & 3/4 cups white wine vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar (i use turbinado)
2 & 1/4 tablespoons sea salt - See more at: http://hungrytigress.com/2011/09/hot-damn-chile-pickle/#sthash.uNN37mJK.dpuf

3 pounds chiles – any kind, stemmed & chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 & 1/3 cups light sesame oil (not toasted, or another vegetable oil)
1 tablespoon whole brown mustard seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons fenugreek seed
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
3/4 cup garlic, chopped fine*
3/4 cup ginger, chopped fine*
1 teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)
1 & 1/2 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 & 3/4 cups white wine vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar (i use turbinado)
2 & 1/4 tablespoons sea salt - See more at: http://hungrytigress.com/2011/09/hot-damn-chile-pickle/#sthash.3sZ61NoK.dpuf

3/4c garlic
3/4c ginger

3 pounds chiles – any kind, stemmed & chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 & 1/3 cups light sesame oil (not toasted, or another vegetable oil)
1 tablespoon whole brown mustard seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons fenugreek seed
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 & 1/2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
3/4 cup garlic, chopped fine*
3/4 cup ginger, chopped fine*
1 teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)
1 & 1/2 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 & 3/4 cups white wine vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar (i use turbinado)
2 & 1/4 tablespoons sea salt - See more at: http://hungrytigress.com/2011/09/hot-damn-chile-pickle/#sthash.3sZ61NoK.dpuf

1/2T turmeric
1 3/4 c white wine vinegar
1/4c palm sugar
2 1/4T sea salt

hot oil, mustard 20 sec; then rest of the spices, 20 sec; then garlic ginger turmeric few secs; then chilies and vinegar, salt, sugar, simmer 1 hour.


update:
the 2012 version, more pics

random Tomato Sauce making pics

tomatoes, 5 gallon pot, smaller pot for reduction (though usually I go wider/shorter than this one)

10 lbs tomatoes --> 1Q sauce....

what I've been calling tomato molasses, the juice reduced down all the way till it's sticky

more fun with Tomatoes, Ricotta

cute

with envy

cilantro pesto, fried ricotta

basil, fried ricotta

different cilantro pesto

Chiles en Escabeche

I made up an alternate escabeche recipe from the first one I tried. From that first batch I really really liked the carrots, and this one upped the carrot ratio quite a bit. The recipe looks pretty different from that first one, but the ratio of veggies by weight to vinegar is the same, so you can tell they are based in food safety.

Chiles en Escabeche
from the Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy

1lb chilies (I used a mix of alot of types)
1.5 lbs carrots
1 lb onion
3T salt
1/3 c water
5 cloves garlic
10 peppercorns
1t cumin seed
4 cloves
16 bay leaves
thyme
1.5 t oregano
1/2 c oil
4c white wine vinegar
10 cloves garlic
1/2 t sugar

I didn't follow this exactly right. I was supposed to make a paste from the 5 garlic cloves and some of the bay leaves and spices. Didn't.

Slice peppers lengthwise, lose seeds if you want. Slice carrots. Toss with salt, let sit for a few hours.
Heat oil, add spices, bay leaves, onion, fry for 10 min
Add strained peppers, carrots, cook 10 more min
Add salty liquid, vinegar, rest of ingredients, bring to boil, cook 8 min
cool before putting in jars

I am loving the first batch, haven't tapped this one yet.
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil