And NaBloPoMo Is Finally Over!

Thank god, because I am exhausted. I love cooking but weeks of experimenting with new recipes - plus taking pictures of everything - takes its toll on body and mind. You can tell by looking at the posts from this last week: three didn't have recipes at all and now this one. I have a new burn (thanks birthday tart!) and new cupcake tins (thanks Ryan!), plus new confidence in adjusting some Indian recipes. I have several recipes that didn't make the cut for the blog (Rogan Josh (a lamb curry), I am particularly looking at you) and possibly not even for my stomach. I am a year older by a coincidence of timing, though this daily exercise might also hold some blame. I look forward to taking more time with my posts, my pictures, hell, my choice of recipes and browsing the blogs of other foodies. But most of all I look forward to a bit of break: I fly to the States this evening to see my sisters and their families for the first time in over a year and a half. Woo! See you soon.

Curried Squid

Sometimes recipes disappointment me and I know that part of the fault lies with me and my tendency to take liberty with certain ingredients. Who knew that just a few tablespoons extra coconut milk would completely wash out all other flavors? Well, I suppose I should have known that but ignored that logic and went ahead with my instinctive desire for MORE, leaving me with bland coconut squid. I will also lay some blame in the frozen squid hoods I used: I would have bought fresh but the thought of cleaning those things - removing tentacles, head and innards, then peeling the skin off - was in itself too much work, so I went the easy route and suffered through the resulting chewiness. I wanted to enjoy this recipe - I love (cooked) squid - but just couldn't get into it. I'll give you the recipe as written in the book so you can make it without my adjustments. Or, if you know a better curried squid recipe by all means let me know - I still want to like it!

And so I'm 30

Today is my birthday and yes, it is the big 3-0. Did I do anything big to celebrate? Well, I washed the living room floor because it was pretty dirty and did two loads of laundry, so that's pretty cool. Seth had a deadlift competition and lifted a PR of 666lbs, which is awesome. I smoked some shisha and read for a couple of hours. And then I was going to make a simple lemon tart for my birthday "cake" until I remembered, "Hey, it's my damn 30th birthday" and decided instead to extend a bit more effort. I made a lemon cream tart with blackberry sauce: cool, refreshing, slightly tart (ha!), totally delicious.

Boo for my poor job at White Balancing!

Lemon Cream
Dorie Greenspan

1 cup sugar 
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons 
4 large eggs 
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 4 to 5 lemons) 
2 sticks plus 5 tablespoons (21 tablespoons; 10 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces 
1 fully-baked 9-inch tart shell

1. Have a thermometer, preferably an instant-read, a strainer and a blender (first choice) or food processor at the ready. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

2. Put the sugar and zest in a large metal bowl that can be fitted into the pan of simmering water. Off heat, work the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs followed by the lemon juice.

3. Fit the bowl into the pan (make certain the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl) and cook, stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. You want to cook the cream until it reaches 180°F. As you whisk the cream over heat—and you must whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling—you’ll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as the cream is getting closer to 180°F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point—the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don’t stop whisking and don’t stop checking the temperature. And have patience—depending on how much heat you’re giving the cream, getting to temp can take as long as 10 minutes.



 4. As soon as you reach 180°F, pull the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of a blender (or food processor); discard the zest. Let the cream rest at room temperature, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140°F, about 10 minutes.

5. Turn the blender to high and, with the machine going, add about 5 pieces of butter at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed while you’re incorporating the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going—to get the perfect light, airy texture of lemon-cream dreams, you must continue to beat the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.

6. Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal and chill the cream for at least 4 hours or overnight. When you are ready to construct the tart, just whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell. Serve cold.

Blackberry Sauce


8oz blackberries, fresh or frozen (defrosted)
1 1/2tbsp sugar
2tsp lemon juice
1-2tbsp water (if using fresh)

Blend all ingredient together in a food processor, then strain through a mesh strainer to remove seeds. Enjoy.

On Eggplants

I have this large eggplant in my refrigerator and am not sure if I want to eat it. See, I have always hated eggplant - despised it, actually. It was one of those vegetable my father grew in the garden for god-only-knows what reason, considering no one in the house liked them much, and on occasion he would cut one up and deep-fry it like his mother used to and which only he would eat, trying to convince us (and maybe himself) how good it tasted. Images of greasy sticks o' nastiness are seared in my memory. Not surprisingly, eggplants were high on the list of garden giveaways and I believe Dad silently rejoiced when my sister began dating (and eventually married) a vegetarian; whether my brother-in-law rejoiced over twenty pounds of eggplant every summer is another matter. And it wasn't just that I couldn't stand to eat aubergines - I couldn't even watch people eat them. I was out to dinner with a vegetarian friend and he ordered some dish that came out stacked between two grotesquely large slabs of grilled eggplant, which he loves and subsequently attacked with his fork; I silently gagged. To be clear: eggplants = epitome of gross.