Changes

I'm moving this blog. Don't get me wrong, Blogspot has been great. There are lots of wonderful blogs on Blogspot and a it has a really easy interface. There was no great reason to switch. That is, until we decided to move to WordPress at work. Also I just like WordPress a bit better. So I moved all the content yesterday and will post the first Share post there today. Find it at www.harmoniouskitchen.wordpress.com.

Please re-direct your bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc. Those of you fabulous bloggers who used to be to the left on my blogroll will soon be restored (as soon as I get some time!). Thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you over there!

Chakchouka

I never really meant to make this recipe. I found it in that great CSA-friendly cookbook The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health, and posted it to the farm blog because it uses up a lot of the stuff that we are getting. Then Sam told me that he had to make a potluck dish (S has had a lot of potlucks lately), and this was literally the only thing that I could come up with that didn't require a trip to the store.

To be frank, when reading the recipe, I admired the dish for its efficiency, but wasn't really expecting much from it. I was shocked by just how good it was. I think you will be too. I've already written it once, so just click here to connect to the recipe. Or buy the book. It is a CSA lifesaver.

We had some furry visitors in our garage last night. Somehow they found the granola bars from our emergency kit and had a little raccoon feast.

What to do with Jalapenos?

Pawn them off on someone else. At least that's my approach. I just don't have enough of a spicy-food repertoire to do much better, I'm afraid. And the jalapenos that we've been getting are a super variable, so you never know if the bite you are about to take will taste delicious and subtly hot or if it will send you screaming to the fridge for a glass of milk. So I made this, and sent it with Sam to a potluck:

Do you need a recipe for this? No, you do not. Yes, it's cream cheese. Bake at 375 for 25 mins on a rack over a pan. Done. I ate two, which is probably one more than the legal limit ought to be.

Pizza Bomba

Pizza Bomba is basically fried pizza balls. It's nothing that it would have ever occurred to me to try at home, had Jamie Oliver not suggested it. Pizza Bomba was also the occasion for a real come to Jesus talk between me and my daughter when she started complaining about dinner. It ran something like this:

"Do you know what liver is? Of course you don't because I've never served it to you. Liver is like beef, but drier, and greyer, and served with a pile of onions on top. I can assure you that you would hate to eat it. When I was your age, I ate liver and onions probably twice a month, because that was what was for dinner. Sometimes it was even served with Brussels Sprouts. Now what I have served you tonight is nothing like liver. It is fried pizza balls. Complaining about it is absolutely beyond the pale. If you cannot find some way to sit there and enjoy your fried pizza, then we're going to start having some real problems, because frankly, it's not going to ever get much better than this."

She wisely chose to eat the bombas.

Bombas are a recipe in Jamie at Home, but are really more like a technique. Cut up pizza dough into rounds, let rest, and then flatten to about a 4 inch circle. Fill them (with mostly dry filling), close them up into a ball, and fry for about 5 mins.  Mine had mozzarella, tomato and basil in them along with a bit of sauce.

I cut the dough, and rolled it by hand into little boules. Let it rest for 20 mins or so, and you are ready to take a pin and roll it out. If you don't know how to make a proper roll, the best way to learn is as follows - quit your job and get hired to work the bench at a real bakery. After three months or so of waking up for your shift at 2am and making 400 rolls per morning, you will probably have the technique down, and be able to churn out rolls using both hands faster than you ever imagined could be. If this seems unreasonable, you can also make do by just sort of squishing the dough into a circle and calling it good enough. And unless you are trying to take professional-grade pictures of the balls, or trying out for the Next Food Network Star, it will be fine.

When done frying, the bombas will be as hot as molten lava, so wait a bit before serving them to anyone you care about. Resist the urge to bite into one straight away. You will only be sorry. After ten minutes or so, they will happily go to the table in a puddle of marinara. Yum.

Fun with Preschoolers

I have mixed feelings about the preschool show Yo Gabba Gabba. It's deeply weird, slightly awesome, slightly off-putting. There's a recurring segment called "Biz's Beat of the Day" in which Biz Markee beatboxes for the kids. "Let's all do it together with Biz."

I can honestly say that I never understood the point of that bit until today. Wow, this was hilarious...

Gingered Carrot Soup

This recipe is not some sort of fruit forward California wine that smacks you in the face. Rather, it's a refined French Pinot - subtle and balanced. It is sweet and perfect, and every member of the family will happily eat it along with a good-sized chunk of hearty bread.

Have I posted this recipe before? Probably. I can't help but be amazed by how much I love it every time I make it though. Carrot soup makes me happy in a very basic way. Many carrot soups ask you to add other flavors. I was surprised at how delicious this stripped-down version was.

2.5 lbs carrots, chopped
1 large clove garlic
1.5 Tbs ginger, chopped
3 Tbs butter
Salt and pepper

If I had an onion hanging around, I almost certainly would have put it in as well. No onion, no matter. It was still delicious.

Melt butter in a large soup pan. Add garlic and ginger and cook over medium heat for a minute or two. Add carrots and let them get slightly brown in the butter, about another 5 minutes or so. Cover with water and bring to a boil. When the carrots are falling apart easily, blend the soup to smoothness.

The Terrible Twos

I'm posting this just because it really is quite funny. My daughter is starting dance class, and so we went to the local dance store to buy shoes. I had to bring Cosmo too as there was no one home to watch him. The store was a zoo - lots of little girls trying on leotards and getting ready for the next season of class. Cosmo was a wreck - overtired and generally uncooperative. While Nellie was trying on shoes, he thought it would be funny to go running into the dressing rooms and make all the little girls scream. When I held him to stop that behavior, he would kick and scream like mad himself. The sales person helpfully got us out of the store quickly. Of course.

It's like he turned into a caricature of a 2 year old overnight.