Garden Update 12/30/11

I. Have. Broccoli.  Yes, a whole head of broccoli.  I thought it would never come in!  My snap peas and snow peas are growing taller than my fence.  I have no clue what to do with them, but they're definitely going off!The broccoli crowns are coming in nicely and finally harvested the first one today.  Brussel sprouts are still slow-- and few since a couple of the plants were really stunted by aphids and I just let them continue to be stunted hoping the aphids would continue to attack that plant and leave the good ones, which so far is exactly what has happened.  The only real disappointment is the green beans I had planted.  They basically died off and I pulled them out of the ground today, but not before I got a round of beans off of them. Snapped a few pictures with the sprinklers going.  Looks at all the veggies for dinner tonight! :)

Garden 

Snap peas that are overgrowing the fence!  Lettuce and brussel sprouts below

Snow peas, snap peas, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower

Brussel sprouts!

Snap peas

Snow peas

Broccoli!

Broccoli ready to be cut

Chinese cabbage

Today's picking: snow and snap peas, green beans, broccoli

My first ever broccoli :)

Dinner tonight :)

Pasta Making, beer brewing..... and a Thai Soup!

Well, you wouldn't think that pasta, beer brewing, and Thai soup necessarily go together, but tonight they do.  Lets start off with the pasta.  I wanted to go all Martha Stewart and do cute little pasta gifts for Christmas gifts (Martha Stewart Pasta Gift Bag).  I don't have the extruder attachment to do rigatoni or anything like in her link, but I figured I could gift fresh fettucini or linguini the same way since I do have the attachment for those.  When I started making  my own pasta recently I couldn't believe how easy the dough is-- 3 cups flour, 4 eggs, a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a couple tablespoons of water.  All of this gets through into the stand mixer together, which is another area this thing is really great in because it mixes AND kneads the dough!

Getting started -- my Kindle Fire already coming in handy!!

                           

All the ingredients throw in at once-- brilliant!

 So, I went with 4 batches of dough-- each a little different since I always like to experiment (and I'm kicking myself in the ass for that now since I just about had to toss one of the dough batches because it was too dry and not pulling through the roller right).  Throwing everything together into the mixer is the easiest part of this whole process.  Each dough ball has to sit for about 15 or 20 mins, then sectioned off to put through the pasta roller attachment, which then goes through the pasta cutter attachment.   

Dough balls

Sectioning off dough for pasta roller/cutter

Stand mixer with pasta attachment

Pasta once it's been through the roller

Everything has to be floured, so the kitchen now looks like a disaster area, but I digress.... once you get everything through the attachments you have to hang it to dry.  I saw these little dinky pasta drying racks online, but I really can't fathom how people use these little tiny racks (like, fit on your counter top size).  Take a look at the pic below for my engineering for the big batch I'm making for xmas-- and it was good way to put the old college text books to use again!

Pasta drying rack

Pasta drying after being cut

Drying pasta

Once everything has been cut, it can sit on these dowels overnight and packaged in the morning.  Fresh dried pasta will keep for about 3-4 months in the pantry.  One quick not in case anybody wants to start doing pasta-- use fresh ingredients.  Don't skimp on the eggs/flour since that's about the only thing that makes up the pasta!  I use eggs fresh from the farmers market, and organic flours.  Ok, enough about pasta.  Now on to the beer.  I posted before that I am getting in to beer brewing with the help of my friends Don and Amanda who have been brewing beer for years and can offer me their expertise.  The beer was bottled two weeks ago today, so I opened a test beer.  The carbonation on it was great.  I think the flavors will develop more on it in the next few weeks, but first indications are that I probably have a good amber ale.  Thanks Don and Amanda for all the help!!

Autumn Amber Ale

 And finally, to top of this weird mix of stuff I did in my kitchen today, I threw together a Thai soup tonight.  I wasn't going to blog about it, but it came out so yummy that it has to get mention!  Wasn't really a particular recipe per se, just some flavors I like together (think Kashi's lemongrass coconut chicken if you've ever had that).  I used a little bit of coconut the other day to do pineapple coconut waffles and had most of the can of milk leftover, so why not a coconut lemongrass veggie soup?  I'm fortunate enough to live near a mecca of asian markets to get all of the odd ingredients-- as well as cheap chicken bones for my stock that is the base.  I sauteed carrots, shallot, chinese celery, baby bok choy, fresh straw mushroom, kaffir lime leaf, garlic, thai chili, and lemongrass before adding a few dashes of fish sauce and returning the chicken stock to the pan with the veggies.  Finish it with coconut milk and garnish with squeeze of lime, green onion, cilantro, and thai basil.  I'm thinking this will become my new favorite soup to make in the coming months over the winter!  Flavorful, delicious, and nutritious!

Lemongrass coconut soup

Basic whole wheat pasta dough:
1.5 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of fine sea salt
4 eggs
2 tablespoon of olive oil
2-4 tablespoon of water (depending on where you live-- it's dry here in NorCal, so I use 4)

Lemongrass coconut soup:
I use about 7- 8 cup of stock for soups-- prefer home made but a swanson box will do!
2 cloves garlic grated or minced
1 lemongrass stalk (or about 2-4 tablespoon grated lemongrass)
6-8 baby bok choy's (it's about one package of them at my asian grocery)
1 package fresh mushroom (shitake, straw, etc)
2 bunches chinese celery
2 medium shallots, diced
a couple of thai chilis, depending on how spicy you like
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
(not used in the soup last night, but also goes good, about 1/2 lb of shrimp)

Sautee all the veggies in a little bit of EVOO. Return a little bit of stock to the pan and deglaze any carmelized bits on the bottom before dumping the rest of the stock back in.

Add:
1 tablespoon fish sauce
juice of 1 lime (can also grate the zest in but I didn't for this one)
1 can of coconut milk

Let everything marry together on low heat for 5-10 minutes.  In your cup or bowl, garnish the top of the soup with some sliced green onion, cilantro, and some fresh thai basil.  I feel like the fresh herbs mixed with the coconut and lemongrass flavors are really what drives this into the super yummy catagory, so don't skip out on them if you can.  Try and find your local asian grocery, even if it's small, and see if they have thai basil and anything else you need.

Garden Highs and Lows.... and Pork Country Style Ribs for Dinner!

It's always a roller coaster with my garden, but recently more than ever since having a fall garden is a learning process for me- I've never had one before!  All of my garden experience is summer with tomatoes, squash, etc.  Now I have green beans, snow peas, snap peas, 4 different kinds of leafy green lettuce,  brussel sprouts, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, napa cabbage, and all my herbs.  All of these are a first for me.  The Cauliflower, beans, and brussel sprouts aren't doing too well-- cauliflower is stunted and just not going anywhere, beans doing the same, and all but one brussel plant has aphids and little green worms at them.  So, definitely some lows, but there some good stuff too.  Look at my snow peas!

The thick area of vines is snow pea-- and yes, I planted the plant too close together.  I don't think they should be that thick.  On the left was sugar snap peas I planted from seed, and they are spaced much better.  But my snow peas are starting to take off !

I've been sneaking a few pods off here and there and munching on them, but today was the first time I got a whole batch to make with dinner tonight!

And speaking of dinner, lets get to these pork country style ribs..... I saw a recipe a few months ago for BBQ short ribs from Food Networks Sunny Anderson:  BBQ Short Ribs .  Short ribs can actually be a pricey cut of meat.  Like, more so than baby back ribs and all.  Matt doesn't like having to pick around bones, so I tried this with pork country style ribs (basically shoulder roast type cut but cut into boneless strips), which also tend to be a cheaper cut of meat (on sale $1.56/lb at my local grocery this week).  The secret to the short ribs or country style ribs is slow and low.  Sunny's recipe does pretty well with that.  I follow everything she does when it comes to cooking in the oven.  I put the country style ribs in her sauce and cover them slow and low in the oven.  I finish them off over open fire or on the grill though.  Can't beat that taste of charring the outside of these once they're done.  And on the grill I'll apply some of my favorite BBQ sauce or more of the home made sauce.  These are fabulous to do for car camping.  Just pack them up in tupperware to bring camping with some BBQ sauce with tongs and BBQ brush.  Just finish them on the grill where you're camping.

I'll update this tonight with pictures of the finished product!

Stuffed Peppers

I remember my mom making stuffed peppers when I was a kid.  I wasn't a huge fan of them back then, but gained an appreciation for them as I got older, and then plain old missed then when I moved away for college.  I think about them from time to time, but don't really go out of my way to make them because it's a heavy dish that's dominated by red meat, where as I usually tend to lean towards veggie heavy dishes with light lean white proteins.  Every now and then I like a good filet done for a dose of red meat and all....but, I digress....  so back to these peppers.  I was at a farmers market in Monterey last week,  Produce Market at Moss Landing , and found some huge locally grown green peppers that were only 4 for $1.  So, why not make some stuffed peppers?  I picked up some ground 97% lean beef at my local asian grocery (a whopping $1.69/lb... I still can't believe the price of stuff at the asian grocers here!) and pretty much had all the herbs and stuff in the garden.

So, for the most part with all of my cooking endeavors, I think of something that I want, and I'll scout out a few recipes and take a little from here and a little from there, and in addition to my own changes/additions, I'll come up with something.  But, I was in a hurry last night so mostly went from this recipe:  Simply Recipes: Dad's Stuffed Bell Peppers .  I did make a few changes-- I browned the meat for a few mins (actually, I did this by accident.  In a hurry I missed the part where you mix in the meat raw with everything else for the filling, but anyway it worked out fine), used probably double the amount of fresh oregano out of my garden (they say with fresh herbs you should use a lot more than dried, like double or something), did 2 giant cloves of garlic instead of 1, I did top with a little italian cheese blend and broil for a few mins at the end, and the biggest change was I used a mixture of organic brown rice and quinoa to make things a little healthier.  For the tomatoes I was able to get my hands on these: Pomi Tomatoes .  These taste AMAZING, are tetra boxed so you don't get that weird canned flavor, and come without any preservatives and stuff.  I am even luckier to be able to find these every now and then at a local close out grocery for 59 cents a box-- a really amazing deal for such a great product.  But, you can use any canned tomatoes you want.  For an extra kick try Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes -- they're yummy! 

So, for a kind of thrown together last minute thing last night, they didn't come out too bad.  I really loved the texture of the brown rice and quinoa combo!

My Beer Post!

Well, I mean 'beer post' in a couple different ways.  I was going to say "my first post," but in skydiving anything that is a first, you owe a case of beer for.  So, this is my beer post.  BUT, also my beer post in the fact that I wanted to start off talking about my latest adventure-- beer brewing!  What could be more fun than beer, right?  Some friends I met through skydiving, Don and Amanda, came over to help me.  Don is an avid brewer and was a life saver in this whole process.  He helped me brew an amber wheat ale in the back yard.  It sat in the primary for a few weeks longer than it was supposed to, but I've heard from other brewers that it's OK.  So, I transferred the beer the other night to a secondary stage, where it will sit until this Fri.  Don's going to help me bottle the beer, where it will then sit for another two weeks.  I need a good name for my brews-- I'm taking suggestions. :)  Next up will be a hefeweizen!

  

(Transferring beer from the primary to the secondary)