FoodNerd!

So I had a cup or so of red wine kicking around left over, and I finally did something with it. Turned out yummy.

Boil leftover red wine with 2 cloves, 1 cinnamon stick, 6-8 peppercorns, and 2 roughly 1″ chunks of piloncillo (or a couple tablespoons of brown sugar) until it becomes syrupy.

When cool, pour it over some segmented oranges in a bowl, and let macerate a while.

I think this would be a lovely dinner party dessert in glass cups to show off the jewel tones of the fruit and syrup. I’d allow 1 orange per person, with maybe one extra for the bowl.

A while ago tallasiandude went through an obsession with acorns and whether or not you could eat them. He collected the godawful quantity of them that fell in our yard, then cracked them (with a hammer) and cleaned off the bitter skins, and then soaked them (for a near eternity). Finally he dried them and ground them in the food processor to make a beautiful deep brown flour.

We made them into pancakes. You can do it with only acorn flour, but these are very flat like crepes and really not what you want unless you are doing some kind of hard-core survivalist cuisine. Adding even a tiny amount of regular all-purpose flour will give you the fluffier pancake texture while still retaining the slightly gritty texture and nutty flavor that proves you’re eating acorns. Which, by the way, are quite delicious.

Here’s the recipe, so I can finally throw out the piece of paper on which it’s scribbled:

1 cup acorn flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp butter (melted)
1.25 cup milk
1 egg (beaten)

A delicious main-course salad I happened into while using up leftovers.

large can butter beans, drained and rinsed
can of tuna, drained
jar of marinated artichokes
big handful of dill, chopped
1/2 cup or so of ajvar

Mix all this up together with a drizzle of olive oil, some brine from the artichoke jar, and black pepper and hot paprika if your ajvar isn’t the hot spicy kind.

Haven’t made these yet, but I need to type the recipe up somewhere. From the Penzey’s catalog.

1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

filling:
1 stick butter, room temp
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 cup marshmallow fluff
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two large cookie sheets, set aside. In large bowl, beat the egg and oil. Gradually add the sugar and keep beating till pale yellow. In another bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In a measuring cup, combine the buttermilk and vanilla. While mixing, alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the egg and sugar, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Drop the batter by tablespoons onto cookie sheets. These will spread a lot, so make 6 cookies per sheet at a time. Bake 8-10 mins until the top springs back when lightly touched. Remove to wire racks to cool. When cool, spread filling between two cookies to make sammiches.

For the filling, combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

I got this recipe from my mother in law after she served them to me during a visit and I went bonkers for them. I just typed it up for a friend who went bonkers for them after having them at our NoodleFest, so I figured I should post it as well.

1 lb daikon

peel and cut into quarters the long way (or whatever size/shape seems like it will make nice pickle pieces). Slice thin, btwn 1/8 and 1/4″ to taste.

mix the slices with:
1 Tbsp salt (kosher, and you can go a little lighter on this maybe I think)
1 tsp szechuan peppercorns
2 pcs star anise (I think they mean 2 whole ones but I use up my broken pcs for this)

Let this sit with a heavy weight on it for 2 hrs; remove weight and drain liquid. Wrap turnips in a cloth, press again with heavy weight for 1 hr.

Unwrap turnips and mix with:
2.5 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp soy sauce

Marinate 1 hr.

I think you can short the press-and-drain a little bit, but you do want to get the liquid out pretty well as it gets runny enough as it is.

I have been digging the last of these pickles with congee. Hope yours come out good!

Take whole wheat bread. Spread generously with Red Gold hungarian paprika puree (thanks m!), tomato paste and dijon mustard. Top with cheese. Grill in toaster oven.

OMG. Tangy and awesome.

Today I had a particularly delightful grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, made entirely of Trader Joe’s products.

2 slices Tuscan Pane bread
Chili Pepper Sauce
mozzarella cheese
blue cheese crumbles

grilled in a little bit of butter. OMG nom nom nom. It is taking pretty much all I have not to make myself another one.

I made something last night to use up the last bit of cornmeal mix that I bought in NC, and it reminded me of the yummier 1970s random-ingredient casseroles of my youth. It’s easy, and cheap, and full of veggies, so y’all might like it.

Dice up a red bell pepper and half an onion, saute. When it starts to sweat, add a pound of ground beef and brown it with a bunch of mexican spice mix or chili powder or what have you. Be generous, this tends to be bland once it’s finished — I wished I had jacked up the flavor more in mine.

When the meat is almost done, add a drained can of corn and a drained can of pinto beans. Add some hot sauce if you feel like it. Add a can of diced or whole tomatoes cut up and their juice. Add salt to taste and more spice mix if you think it needs it.

Pour all this into a glass baking dish. Top with some grated cheese — I only had a tiny bit left, so perhaps more cheese would have made it more savory. Top that with prepared cornbread batter, and bake according to the cornbread directions.

I am on a massive Korean food jag. Has something to do with the deep freeze temps outside, and something more to do with the cold I am fighting off. And perhaps a little bit to do with the side trip I made to the H-Mart on the way home from a certification test I had to take for work, heh heh. But the craving was there before the H-Mart trip; that was just enabling.

The refrigerator case at H-Mart had a little tub of pre-seasoned various greens and mushrooms that one can mix in with rice to make bibimbap. I added a grated carrot that cooked in the heat of the rice, and a bit of hamburger scrambled with minced garlic and soy sauce, plus of course the fried egg on top. And ssamjang made by mixing commercial ssamjang with some “sauce for soup” that is a bit spicier, plus a touch of agave syrup and a couple tablespoons of sherry vinegar (thank you, David Chang, you studmuffin you).

I pillaged the pan chan selection in that refrigerator case, too, making away with a seasoned nori, a cucumber pickle with sesame, a sliced omelet, and a pickled whole garlic in spicy sauce that I have been macking down with abandon in hopes of killing the bug I’m fighting. It’s quite strong but I gotta say, that sauce is nom.

I also got a tub of the young radish kimchi with greens, which is really excellent — I’ve had it before and it is a delightful mix of fresh and fermenty. Radishes and their greens are supposed to be chockablock with vitamins too and very good for you.

And then I hauled off and made a kimchi stew. Fried a bit of sidemeat (pork fat with pepper, basically) with an onion, then dumped in kimchi, a bottle of clam juice, 2 bottles of water, and a spoonful of that spicy sauce for soup, a 1/2 tsp of sugar b/c the sauce had a bit of sugar in it too, and a tablespoon of coarse Korean red pepper powder. Simmered half an hour then dropped in a half package of tofu, sliced, and some Trader Joe’s frozen shrimp. Drizzled a little sesame oil over to serve. Based on Maangchi’s recipe on her site. There are not words for how good this is on a cold winter night, with some hot rice and pickley bits on the side.

I also did a congee with some of the leftover vegetables and some Japanese sweet potato that came out pretty awesome. I love hot congee with lots of stuff in it when I am feeling poorly.

I took a break for a Chinese-style chicken and oyster mushroom stir fry because they had adorable packets of oyster mushrooms on sale for $2.99. And we’ll probably eat the leftovers of that next week as a pan-fried noodle because they also had packets of pre-cooked yellow noodle that were irresistible to a foodwhore magpie.

Sushi tonight, most likely, as part of Nerd Date Night. (Wooo, Tron Legacy!) But then back to more kimchi stew, I think.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel for a green or green-like vegetable after a long stretch of not grocery shopping, I did the following:

Mix shredded green cabbage (bagged from Trader Joe’s works fine) with a grated carrot, some diced kosher dill pickle, ground black pepper and a drizzle of the pickle brine.

Let it sit 15 mins or more and it makes a pretty decent tangy side for whatever you happen to be eating, in my case broiled chicken thigh and rice.