Wild Garden Seed -- Philomath, OR / NPR

Interesting story about the fight over GMO crops and cross breeding in the Willamette Valley. Organics won in a court case, yea!

Canning / NPR

nice

Matilija Satsuma Tangerine Marmalade

Sara and I went to the Matilija Creek area in back of Ojai last weekend and there was a roadside Satsuma bin, 8 for a buck. We got 3 bucks worth, really we should have bought them all! Sara is on a marmalade kick, so I gave it a whirl, using various preserving cookbooks for inspiration. This is what I came up with. 1st, I wanted to make my own pectin, so boiled up lemon seeds and the strings on the fruit and also lime pits and rinds; got about 1Q of pectin-y liquid from that. I added 1Q of water because I was using fruit, + a lot of collected rinds. So all told I used 2 lbs of satsumas, about 15 rinds from satsumas, a grapefuit rind, a small lemon, and 4 tiny lemons. And then 2Q of liquid. And then 2.5 lbs of sugar. Combined fruit, rinds, liquid, let that sit for a day or so. Cooked it up, let it sit. Added sugar, let it sit. Cooked it up. I didn't can this batch, think we'll just eat it, but will can in the future. I think I used too much sugar, but Andrew, who's dad is British, thought it was about right.

Tangerine Marmalade on a toasted Sour Skon. Yum.

Buffalo / NPR

I love me some buffalo. Good story.

Speaking Prairie Dog / NPR

A radiolab story, very cool. Note: I hope to hell those cute prairie dogs aren't that closely related to ground squirrels, cause man-o-man do those squirrels do damage to the garden; I hate them, almost as much as pocket gophers.

Burgers

cheeseburgers, grilled onions and peppers, and avo

A whole foods dinner, my first visit to the one in SB. Not that exciting, whole-paycheck pricing being in full-effect, but we got some lamb, some buffalo, ciabatta bread, some good cheddar, and a nice beer.

yum

yum

action shot

Cranberry Sorbet + yogurt

pretty, tasty

Lemongrass Crème Fraîche Sherbet #2

Looking at the first time I made this, I didn't change much, but liked this one more. Very simple. Brew up some strong lemongrass tea (steep lemongrass cuttings in near boiling water for ~10 min). Use ~1 c tea, 8 oz (1 c) vanilla sugar to make a simple syrup. Cool. Mix with ~2 c of crème fraîche. You don't need a stick blender for this one as it doesn't freeze very hard. A worthy update to the sorbet chronicles.
Sara wanted to try it with a grating of chocolate over it... I think it was just fine plain, but it sure makes for a pretty picture.

Cranberry Sorbet

Straight from a David Lebovitz blog post, I didn't make any changes. Quite good. It didn't quite go with the other thing I made (lemongrass crème fraîche sherbet) but the potential is certainly there.

Vietnamese Beef & Broccoli

Pretty simple. Garlic, onion, ground beef, broccoli, sweet peppers, a little bit of mustard greens and mint, fish sauce. Butternut squash on the side, nuoc cham poored over.

I use the macro setting + LED light for indoor photography cause it gets rid of the dreaded yellow tinge. But it's not very wide, so Sara had to hunch over to get in the frame...

Nuoc cham. I love this stuff.

Tartine

Sara visited the bakery Tartine in SF in December and really liked it, and got their cookbook from her mom as a gift. She made brownies the day the book came, lemon bars the next.

eyes closed, but cute

brownie crumbs and ice cream, yum

Christmas Break Soup

A bit of a kitchen sink job. Turkey stock from the thanksgiving turkey, white beans, adzuki beans, barley, homemade pimiento peppers preserved in olive oil from the pantry, a can of anchovies, chard, onion, carrots, garlic, leeks, thyme, homemade egg noodles. Tasty + frugal + bottomless.

New Years Eve Butternut Dal

The Bee came back for New Year's Eve! I think I fell asleep and she had to wake me up for the midnight thing but c'est la vie. I made a pretty tasty dal for dinner, typical technique with cooking the lentils with turmeric and cooking the onions with asafoetida, but used french puy lentils and added butternut squash, so it was a little different. Tasty. She bought a bottle of Tequila Corralejo that came with sweet homemade-style glasses and juiced some oranges and we had cute little cocktails...

Horchata Tang

My brother brought this back from Baja last year. Actually fairly tasty.

Food Product Pics

Scary that both sugar and corn syrup come before the popcorn...

3 Food Icons / NPR

I listened to these stories when they were broadcast, but forgot to post the links. Nice stories on Madhur Jaffrey, Marcella Hazan, and Jacques Pépin. I knew most of the JP anecdotes, because I've read his book, but all of the radio stories were great, and there's extra online content, too.

Udo Kier / Onion AV

This really made my day. I just recently got a deal on Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula so just watched them and then watched them with commentary. He's such an interesting screen presence, and I love his voice.