More Rain

It started raining like hell last night, still going. 5.4" as of 3:30 pm. This is a REALLY slow moving storm, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get 8" in one day, we shall see. My rain harvesting system is all full, lots of rain this year... 24.8" and counting, 154% of normal. Update: total for the storm was 6.44", it rained some the night after I posted this.

Mascarpone

I had been meaning to make this for a long time, I ordered tartaric acid from NE cheesemaking a long time ago. Finally did with a little push from this guy's awesome cheesemaking page. I essentially followed his recipe to a T so won't repeat it. The only difference was I used a coffee filter to strain it instead of a sanitized handkerchief. Gonna do the hanky next time as the coffee filter clogged up a bit. He calls for mixing cream and half 'n' half for the dairy, so when the co-op had bottles of the two from Straus 1/2 off I went to town and made 2Q worth of it.

Using the stuff was a little difficult. The most often recommended use is a dollop with fresh fruit. I didn't like that much as yogurt works just fine for that, and is easier. When my brother was in town we did a pasta with red sauce and collard greens and mascarpone that was excellent. It was also pretty tasty on bread. Though honestly the best might have been just eating it straight up out of the container as an afterschool snack. But an awfully fattening snack! So I don't know how often I'll be making it, as there are plenty of substitutes, but it was a fun experiment.

Lemon + Blood Orange Marmalade pics

I think I'm up to 8 batches of marmalade this winter/spring. Some batches have been bigger than others. Mostly it's just been cooking up Satsuma peels. This time I juiced some citrus for sherbets, and am going to cook up the rinds instead of zesting them. Lemons from the UCSB GHGP garden, blood oranges from the co-op. Pretty.
The basic method is to slice them up and let them marinate in water or what I'm calling pectin tea -- you boil/simmer seeds, the stringy white bits, pith etc. to get natural pectin -- for a day or so at the beginning. Then heat, cool, heat, cool over a couple of days, then add sugar and heat one more time.

The Marmalade Chronicles Umbrella Post

The basic method: juice your citrus, drink the juice or save for the marmalade (you'll use it in a couple of days). weigh your peels, then slice them up. marinate in water or pectin tea -- you boil/simmer seeds, the stringy white bits, pith etc. to get natural pectin, and then strain it through a coffee filter -- for a day or so. Then heat, cool, heat, cool over a couple of days. add juice, or not. add sugar (same weight of sugar as weight of the peels) and heat one more time, to 220. I can it by putting the hot marmalade in hot, sterile canning jars, top with a canning lid that's been simmering in water for 10 minutes. Tighten the ring. It seals as it cools.  

2011 #1 Matilija satsuma.
2011 #5 Satsuma + lime.
2011 #7 Lemon + blood orange.
Lemon from eggbeater. She is such a good writer.

2012 Zucchini Lemon

Art/Science

I'm cleaning up random files on my computer and came across this. It shows drainage networks; I think this is a small area of Yosemite National Park.

Umbrella Pizza Post

Pizza with Eliza's Family.
Comal Pizza.
Olive Juice Pizza.
Dough pic.
Zombieland Pizza.
Valentine's Pizza.
Onion pizza.

East Camino Cielo

These are about half of the pics I took last weekend up on East Camino Cielo, near the Fremont Trail trailhead. The rest are on my picasa.

Really coarse-grained snow remnants

lichen for the Bee

hummingbird sage

pretty ferns

snow on the next mountain range

two species of ceanothus

grey pine (?)

Pizza Pics

Had a pizza thing on a friday, and then finished off the leftover dough on a monday. The dough was much better on monday -- love those long slow rises. Leeks, Jamie O onion chutney (recipe at some point), Humboldt Fog aged goat cheese.

close up of the layer of ash in the cheese

this one was red sauce and a goat+cow milk cheese from TJs

Eggs 'n' Zhoug

Eggs fried in oil on top of a green zhoug variant, I think this was arugula, chilies, garlic, olive oil, salt.

Pancake Pics

the day after Valentine's Day

buttermilk/oatmeal a couple of days later

Satsuma/Lime Marmalade

I've made, I think, 5 batches of marmalades this late-winter. This one was satsuma peels and a little bit of fresh limes. Pretty.

Flamingos in Siberia / NPR

My computer got a virus a week ago so haven't been able to post -- have some good pics to put up. This is the first NPR story since then that blew my mind. It's great.

Bluegrass + Jazz / NPR

Think I'm gonna get this album.

Radar 18 Feb

9:14 am

10:48 am, the cell isn't moving!
12:33 pm, ditto

12:38. and then all of a sudden in 5 minutes the yellow radar color has crossed Pt. Conception, and the big gnarly cell broke up!

Bridge School 2010

Damn do I wish I went to this one. I went in 98: Phish, REM, Sarah McLachlan, it was fun. But the 2010 lineup was just sick: Neko Case, the Dude, Buffalo Springfield!!, Lucinda WIlliams, Kris Kristofferson, Modest Mouse. Jeez.

Buffalo Springfield saturday songs 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,encore (kind woman was song 7)

S+S Valentine's Day #1

semi-heart-shaped pizza

cheese-y but cute

cheese-y but cute

leeks/garlic, red bell pepper, provolone

note the neti pot box in the background

I like this pic

a different kind of couple

Egypt

pic from the NPR website

Today the Egyptian president didn't resign afterall, but Jerry Sloan, the coach of the Jazz, did. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Update: not that anyone is getting world news off of my silly blog, but Mubarak finally resigned.

Clean Burning Stoves / NPR

Very cool story.

Hendrik Coetzee / Outside Online

Really fascinating article. He was a kayaker who pioneered alot of routes on rivers in Africa.

More Food Politics from Mark Bittman

Ever since he retired from his minimalist column Bittman has been on the warpath about the crap food many Americans eat. The most recent one has a couple of real nuggets:

The goal is not universal veganism, which is pie-in-the-sky; it’s health and sustainability

The truly healthy alternative to that chip is not a fake chip; it’s a carrot. Likewise, the alternative to sausage is not vegan sausage; it’s less sausage. This is really all pretty simple.

The eating for one or 6 billion article is good, too:

“Revolutionary” diet books flood the market this time of year, promising a life changed permanently and for the better — yes, in just 10 to 30 days! — but, as everyone knows, the key to eating better begins with a diet of real food. The problem is, real food is cooked by real people — you! — and real people are cooking less than ever before.

Janam

Sara really wanted to see these guys, and for 5$ at the MCC I was in. Was a fun show, a mix of songs from Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Turkey and then a couple of bluegrass tunes (Cuckoo Bird, Wayfaring Stranger, Deeper Well from the 1995 Emmylou Harris album, and an original) so every once in a while you could understand the lyrics :) The singer had a great voice; drummer had a Balkan drum -- a double sided marching-band-style drum with a different drum stick for each side; string player used a fiddle, a mandolin-like instrument (may have been an actual mandolin), and a guitar-like instrument with the body being much more spherical; and the clarinet player was groovy -- it looked to me like he was break dancing while he played. There are 5 people in the band pic, but the 5th guy (accordion) didn't come down from SF for the gig.

Light vs. Dark Meat / NPR

Good story last night, interesting looking recipe, too. The money quotes:

Why do we like chicken breasts so much — and how can we cross over to the dark side?

That first question is pretty easy. "People don't like to be reminded that when they eat meat, it's actually part of an animal," food writer Nadia Arumugam tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. "When you have a chicken leg in front of you, there's no denying that's an animal limb."

Shoppers may also perceive dark meat as fattier and less healthy. There is a little more fat in legs, Arumugam says, but only a few calories worth. On the plus side, dark meat is rich in nutrients like iron and vitamin B, Arumugam says, "so you're really getting a good nutritional boost with dark meat."

"There's a whole rest of the world that loves dark meat," she says. That includes Russia, where, until recently, America's unloved chicken legs were being sent.

Meat is such a weird thing, I think she's right on. People want meat, but don't want to think about the animal at all. If they did the whole feed lot industry wouldn't exist! I was present (didn't help much...) when my friend Ben killed a rooster. We had an amazing fried chicken dinner. But I really haven't eaten much meat since.

Taking the Politics out of Climate Science / NPR

interesting interview with the most rational sounding republican I've ever heard.

Sarsoon ka Saag

with yogurt, dal, and rice

a.k.a. Mustard greens cooked with a little cornmeal, punjabi-style. I picked a bunch of greens at the garden, purple osaka mustard and chard from Sara's plot, and went looking for a recipe. Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking hooked me up. I sorta followed the recipe [was supposed to use fenugreek greens instead of seeds, fresh chilies, and it was supposed to be more soup-y, so you are supposed to add cornstarch], and it sorta tasted pretty good :)

Sarsoon ka Saag:
2 lbs mustard
1 lb chard
fenugreek seeds
1/4 c corn meal
couple of dried chilies
asafoetida
2.5 c water
salt
ghee
1" piece of ginger
couple of cloves garlic

Chop up greens, I used the stems, too, but wasn't supposed to. Fenugreek, cornmeal, chilies, asa, water. Cook for a while, stickblend. Salt. In a skillet do the ghee, garlic, ginger, pour over the top.

Licorice Tea Crème Fraîche Sherbet

Not as epic as the lemongrass one, but still pretty damn tasty. Stash Tea, licorice flavor (2 bags) in 1.5 c water, 8 oz sugar, ~2 Q crème fraîche. Simple.

The full sorbet list.

Sleepytime-Cherry Frozen Yogurt

the red bits are from the cranberry sorbet

This didn't start out to be what it ended up to be. I am loving the lemongrass tea crème fraîche sherbet that I've been making, and wanted to try a little more subtle tea, celestial seasonings sleeptime herbal tea to make the tea syrup. Well, it wasn't very interesting. So I soaked some dried cherries in the syrup and made tea/cherry frozen yogurt instead. Now yogurt doesn't have anywhere near the fat content of crème fraîche, so I had to add a bit of booze to it, some homemade vanilla extract and some orangecello if I remember correctly. Anyway, it's still only ok, but it was worth trying... 1.5 c tea (2 bags), 8 oz sugar, ~2 Q yogurt, ~2 T booze. stickblender for sure.

The full sorbet list.