SJ Food Truck Crawl Summer 2011

I could have made these garlic noodles in my sleep! Very Disappointing!

Yum, Coconut milk!

Father's Day Bloody Mary, Mimosas, and Breakfast at Bills

The best part of a Bloody Mary is the Veggies that come with!

Dad had many of these mimosas...tipsy, tipsy!

Natto Three Ways

Natto and green onions over rice

Natto over rice with a fried egg -- yummy yolk

Natto over rice with slices of tomatoes and egg scramble with broccoli

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The reason for the elaborate possibilities of natto--hahaha, well only 3--is because of an episode of "chopped” on the food network that aired in the spring.  One of the secret ingredients the chefs were supposed to use was natto.  For all you peeps who are unaware of what natto is, it is fermented soy beans with a very strong yeasty, sticky, stringy texture—mixed with soy sauce, and sometimes spicy mustard/green onions/nori (dried seaweed).  For the novice natto consumer, this tasty treat, that I could eat all day long, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, is quite a turn off.  Conversely, natto is such a simple, nutritious, daily snack in Japanese culture.  Some research even suggests that the components in natto fight cancer as well as provide other beneficial outcomes.  I will not bore you with all the details, but natto also comes with a fascinating back-story…at least as my father tells it…here goes: long ago, when Samurais roamed the earth on horseback and carriages, one such Samurai’s wife sent him off traveling with homemade food.  One such dish was cooked soy beans.  Because it was so cold in the back of the carriage, as time passed, the soy beans turned into natto.  Even though the Samurai thought the soy beans were rotten and inedible when he saw the stringy texture, and smelled the yeasty stench, he was so hungry from the long journey that he ate it anyway.  To his pleasure, it was delicious.  Of course I know now that this story is probably not true because the process of natto creation can take months underground in the winter (well there are factories nowadays that can do this quicker for us.)

Ok, back to my original reason for writing this post…in the episode of chopped, I was quite disturbed when all of the chefs on the show butchered the natto by grinding it up in a blender and placing a measly bit of it as sauce on the plate, so as not to offend the commoner’s pallet.  A true natto connoisseur (which I do consider myself) would not have made such an offense.  So here I present 3 ways you can try natto.  Another way that is easy on the pallet for the novice is natto-maki, or natto sushi roles—less slime.  You can also get dried natto in little packets without the slime or smell.  "Americans" even eat a product called Tempeh, which is dried soybean clumps, quite similar to dried natto, the difference that I have seen is that dried natto comes like dried peanuts, and Tempeh comes in clumps of dried fermented soy beans.  So I leave you with this thought, how can a chef be a true chef without knowing about natto?!?  That is all I have to say about that at this time.  

Red Swiss Chard Sauteed

A note on cooking and writing sociology

I have been doing a lot of cooking, and a lot of writing sociology in the past several weeks.  I realized that there are striking similarities between the two.  In both, I am trying to tell a story in an organized way, and in both, I am trying to accomplish multiple things in a simplistic, comprehensive way.  If I am successful in both, the consumer and the reader are left wanting more.

Lemon bar with chocolate gelato

Modified version of Giada's “lemon thyme bars.”  Changes: I omitted thyme, and substituted the powdered sugar with regular sugar.  Omission of thyme, good idea; substitution of regular sugar for powdered sugar, not the best idea I have ever had, but I didn’t want to buy powdered sugar hahaha…remember this is food in a jiffy…and that would have required going to the store.  Still tasty, but if I were to make these again, I would definitely go with the powdered sugar.  The gelato you ask?  No, I did not make this—store bought.

Recipe:

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Mix butter, sugar, and 1/2 of lemon for juice, lemon zest if you like, add in dry ingredients.  Butter a square glass dish.  Take mixture and spread on the bottom of the dish.  Preheat oven 325 degrees, bake for 30 minutes. 

The lemon glaze:

1/2 of lemon for juice, 1/2 powdered sugar (I used regular sugar even for this), mix.  Cool the bars, and top the glaze over bars in the dish.  Let set, and serve. 

Rice Porridge

Rice gone mushy from too much water in the rice cooker?  No problem!

Just take all that rice, put in a large pot on the stove.  Add 2-4 cups of water to the pot, depending on how chunky or smooth you like it.  In this particular rice porridge, I added one chicken bouillon cube for every cup of water. 

However, you can make this vegetarian with veggie stock instead of water and bouillon cubes. 

Let simmer on low for several minutes until you get the consistency seen on the right. -------->

Top with whatever ingredients you like, the rice porridge absorbs any flavors you add. 

I topped this porridge with green onions, cilantro, soy sauce drizzle, seven spice mix, red chili flakes. 

You can also add meat, veggies, etc. into the pot to simmer before serving if you like.

You can also use this same method with day old rice!

This dish is perfect for a cold, rainy afternoon such as the one today.

Soba noodles with summer veggies

Zucchini, Eggplant, Tofu Stir Fry

Chicken Curry with Peas

Beef Stew

Tomato, Basil, and Garlic Pasta

Veggie Momos! (aka Nepali Pot Stickers)

The mixture in the bowl is cabbage, carrots, onions, ginger, garlic, and any kind of spices you like.  Chop finely, and mix. Take regular ol' won ton wrappers you find at the local "Asian" market...or the one we go to- Pacific Ocean Market.

Stuff the won ton wrappers, fold into triangles, and tightly press the sides together with little folds to seal.

If you do not have a steamer, no worries, use a makeshift steamer, with a metal pie tin.  Simply poke holes all over the bottom of the pie tin, place over a large pot filled half way with water, cover, and let steam until won ton wrappers are cooked through.

I am not sure how to make this sauce, all I know is it was tasty, but is some kind of Nepali red sauce that is spicy.  I suppose you could use any sauce you like, such as a pot sticker sauce, or a gyoza sauce.  Eat Momos after dipping in whatever sauce you like.