Category Archives: cooking

So is it really bad form to re-post something from your own blog? Every once in awhile I go back and read ancient posts to see what was on my mind, say in May of 2001. I usually do this when I’m working on advanced procrastination techniques. None of that amateur time-wasting for me. I go for the big guns.

I read this yesterday when I should have been tediously transferring information from one endless spreadsheet to another. It was the great manapua experiment that went so very wrong.

I’ve never tried the recipe again even though I’ve always intended to. I had no idea it was so long ago. The funniest part is that almost every month my stats have a search string from someone looking for a manapua or hum bao recipe. I wonder if they even bother to read this.

Yesterday I tried to make manapua and I’m no expert on the correct names and origins of this food but generally I think you could also call this hum bao or bao buns or steamed buns. I have never made this before or seen anyone make it, but my cousin Lisa told me she made them once and it was easy.

So I made the filling and that went fine. I didn’t like the recipe’s filling so I invented my own which was chicken and pressed tofu baked in homemade bbq sauce and then minced carrot, turnip, onion and mushroom sauteed in a bit of bbq sauce and mixed with the tofu/chicken.

Then I made the dough and that actually turned out okay too except it seemed to need an awful lot of flour and I had a tough time getting it all mixed in and the recipe said to be careful not to knead too much because you didn’t want gluten to form.

I did all the steps, did the dough rise, rolled out my dough, filled em up and here’s where the problem came in. The recipe guy said he steamed them in a bamboo steamer in his wok. Since I don’t have a bamboo steamer or a wok, I decided to use the steamer insert in my soup pot. He said he did 12 at a time, two layers of six, but as I made mine I thought, “Hey, I can fit 12 at a time, in two layers,” and I packed them all in elbow to elbow.

So when I did the rise, the buns all fused together into a giant lump of dough and then when I did the steam/cook part, the only part that cooked was the bottoms and along the sides. Then when I took them out, the individual buns were all stuck together and when I tried to separate them, the filling flew out. So basically I ended up with a manapua dough cobbler. We threw them on a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven and salvaged them somewhat.

Sadly, no one has ever found this website by searching for “manapua dough cobbler.”

For the first time in eons I spent my entire weekend (including Friday) chained to the computer, writing. It was both very satisfying and slightly dismaying as now it is Sunday after 5pm and I’m running around doing laundry and cleaning up piles of crap and trying to figure out what I’m going to bring for lunch next week. (Money, sounds easiest.)

I just found a post I wrote yesterday and never posted. Will incorporate into this message. I also have additional photos for Tornado Coverage 2008 but little inclination to organize right now so that will have to wait for at least a day or two.

Here’s the wrap up:

1. I have Word 04 for Mac on my machine. Is it just me or is this the biggest piece of crap in the Universe, known and unknown? It automatically doesn’t things for me that no sane person would ever want to do. It displays this goofy square and lightning bolt when I make certain formatting changes which cover what I’m trying to see. Certain cutting, pasting and deletions hang for up to three seconds before going through. I don’t believe I can adequately express how much I hate this program. Why has Microsoft conquered the world with its crappy stuff?

2. I did the grocery shopping on Friday morning and my husband had written on the list, “Good mustard.” I didn’t see anything on the shelves called “good mustard.” What do you think that could be? One time he wrote “good snacks.” I guess as opposed to all the bad snacks I’ve been stocking up on.

3. Every once in awhile I wake up in the morning and I can’t help but think, “Wow, what an excellent night’s sleep. The past few nights have been great.”

Then, it’s like an emergency signal is triggered in the brain and travels to the insomnia portion and says, “This must not continue,” and then I have a night or nights of the opposite.

Thursday night I had indigestion and drank gallons of water while reading half a book. Friday night I had weird dreams, like Jack Nicholson was yelling at me and Courtney Cox and Jennifer Anniston needed a ride someplace. I also had to go to the bathroom at least 4 times. Last night was another indigestion night. Geez, you hit about 35 and you can’t eat *anything* anymore. At this rate pretty soon we’ll be eating boiled potatoes three times a day.

4. I made two new recipes this weekend and when I was at the store, the only ingredients I could remember were the ones in the title. I had a recipe for Potato and Pancetta chowder and another for Pumpkin, Rice and Black Bean Soup. I should also explain I was trying to clear some random ingredients out of the fridge.

When I got ready to make the potato and pancetta I discovered that (a) I didn’t have pancetta, I had prosciutto (whatever, they both are Italian and start with “p” right?) and (b) the recipe called for mushrooms (?) and a leek. A leek is an onion, right? I also didn’t have half-and-half but an extra splash of milk would work.

It tasted delicious which is the only measure of success in this house.

When I pulled out the other recipe I learned I was supposed to have 2 limes, fresh cilantro and 2 fresh chiles. We had some from concentrate lime juice in the fridge, and a lemon, some ancient dried cilantro and I used a 4 oz. can of roasted green chiles. The recipe called for uncooked rice but I wanted to clear out a container of leftover cooked and I was supposed to use chipotle chili powder and I used ancho. They’re all chiles, right?

This also came out quite spectacularly delicious but, as mentioned above, gave us heartburn. Him more than me. When he has heartburn he groans in his sleep thus, I spent the night curled up next to groaning man.

I have more notes here but I have to try to catch up on my chores.

Pumpkin Scones

2 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 T. baking powder
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. butter cut into chunks
3/4 c. canned pumpkin∗
1/2 c. milk

1. In a bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Add butter and use a pastry blender or your fingers to cut or rub until pea-sized crumbs form.

2. In a small bowl, whisk pumpkin and milk until well blended. Add to flour mixture and stir just until dough is evenly moistened. I find that it’s usually pretty wet but I also usually add too much pumpkin.

3. Scrape onto a lightly floured board, turn over to coat and gently knead until dough comes together, 5 or 6 turns. Pat dough into 6-inch round 1 1/2 inches thick. Cut into 6 equal wedges. I usually form into two “rounds” and make a lot more small ones. Mine usually suggest a wedge shape without ever achieving true wedginess. I think if you made just 6 they’d be huge.

4. Separate wedges and place on a lightly buttered baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. I like to use that sugar in the raw stuff.

5. Bake in a 375&#176 oven until golden brown, 25-30 minutes.

∗ I use pumpkin from the ones in my garden. I’ll probably document how I process them during nablo. Regular canned pumpkin works fine. If you use pumpkin pie filling, you should probably adjust the spices. Be brave and see what happens. I’m sure they’ll be tasty. I think the original source of the recipe is Sunset Magazine.

On Sunday I made a pie for someone else and what a rip to have the delicious smelling pie goodness in your house when you’re not going to get to enjoy it. At least for Bob. I got a piece of the gift pie. So I made a tiny pie on the side.

I have a new crust recipe that has been working for me and part of the appeal is that it’s generous so you roll out a giant thing and can fit it into your pie plate with ease. And you have yards of extra pastry.

We have a small casserole dish. I can’t find a photo of something similar online at the moment. It’s a little bigger than two grilled cheese sandwiches stacked.

I layer some scraps on the bottom. In advance I slice too many apples. This weekend I also threw in the last ½ cup of blueberries with a sprinkle of sugar, lemon and a thickener. Scraped the fruit onto the scraps. Covered them with the remaining scraps and crumbs and baked it next to the pie. I set the timer a half hour early and check it every ten minutes. Since it’s small it can go from yum to sizzle quickly. Enjoy your mini pie.

In other news, I invented a fabulous sandwich for lunch yesterday which was Nutella and cashew butter on homemade buttermilk bread. Delicious.

Finally, I’ve been feeling a bit blue lately and decided to use my lunch hour for some retail therapy. First I went searching for a bathing suit (yes, not the best thing to be looking at if you’re feeling down) but the Rack didn’t have any or if they did I didn’t see where they were. So I went upstairs to look at the shoes. The size 6 aisle: empty. The size 7 ½ aisle: empty. The size 7 aisle: about 9 women crammed in there. I didn’t want shoes that bad so I thought I’d head over to Vicki’s Secret.

They have this thing now (or maybe forever, this is the first time I’ve used it) where they have a sample of all the styles organized by size in the dressing room. So they measure you and then you pick the styles you want to try. Once you know what you like you can go into the store and buy what you want. I liked everything I tried which made me realize how stretched out my old ones are. (sexy!) But this was immediate love. It was the most fabulous bra I’ve ever put on in my life. I would marry that bra. I came out of the dressing room cradling the sample in my hands, demanding that I be taken to this section of the store so I could buy one in every color.

And you know what? That style is on clearance because the new season starts soon. There was not one bra in that style in my size. Not even brown. They dried my tears and told me to come back next week.

Tonight I made a dinner like I haven’t done in a long time. I made two salads that I invented. One was a couscous thing with feta, cilantro, toasted walnuts and kalamata olives, the other one was a variation on a Moosewood Cookbook recipe. [Wikipedia even has the Moosewood Cookbook. Can you stand it? If I could, I would marry Wikipedia.] I used the Perfect Protein Salad recipe but swapped out the soybeans for garbanzos. I also have wheatberries and kamut berries. I know, seriously, I’m not making this up.

The berries are a million years old but apparently that doesn’t matter. Take note survivalists. I haven’t had much interest in cooking berries anytime recently except that this week I had some at lunch.

My normal favorite Wednesday Farmer’s Market lunch is the sausage sandwich.But a couple weeks ago we saw someone eating a very interesting looking pita sandwich and on further investigation found a food vendor on one corner with some sort of lamb sandwich/salad thing that we decided needed investigation.

This week was the first chance we had to try it and first of all, the line was twice as long as the sausage line which normally stretches down the block. Last week we asked how many sausages they sell on a Wednesday and he said 300-350. Maybe 400 on a big day. We had guessed 400. Second of all, the lamb sandwich was $9. (The sausage is $4.50). Your nine dollar sandwich is a big pita with a scoop of salad that has garbanzo beans, wheat berries and some sort of tahini dressing. I don’t have any tahini on hand and didn’t see any at Trader Joes so I used the gist of the Moosewood dressing which was mayo, sour cream, vinegar, dill and garlic. I think the nine dollar sandwich also had a scoop of tabouleh or maybe hummus, I can’t remember, and a little lamb kabob. It was good. But was it a great, worthy of nine dollars sandwich? Ehhhhh.

There’s a restaurant in downtown Portland that we go to for a fancy lunch called, Carafe and they serve a lamb burger that costs about $9 but there you get to sit down and someone brings it to you and you get a cloth napkin and a plate, and it’s crystal clear whose turn it is.

There was a little line snafu at the market and this woman had stepped more towards the pay area and away from the order area so when it someone approached to take our order they skipped her. No big deal. No one was ignoring her on purpose but instead of saying, “Excuse me, it’s my turn,” she did this loud throaty, “UH UH AH AH AH!” like you would do at the dog when he was trying to climb on the Christmas dinner table and lick the turkey. So instead of feeling bad, like, oh, we missed this lady’s turn, we were like, “Geez, if that stick up your butt hurts, maybe you should yank it out.”

It’s back to the sausage cart for me next week.

For the rest of the dinner we had hummus and pita pockets and I made little falafel balls. The recipe made about 30 so we’ll be eating falafel balls for a week.

On Saturday I scanned a couple of creme brulee recipes and picked the easiest one and left the cookbook open on the counter with the ingredients. I ended up not getting to it on Saturday so yesterday morning when I got up, I whipped up the dessert.

The basic recipe is simple: Warm heavy cream in a saucepan. Add vanilla. While it heats whisk some egg yolks and sugar together. Add cream to yolks. Bake in individual cups in the oven in a water bath.

I didn’t re-read the recipe, just threw the stuff together. The recipe called for a cup of sugar and I dumped it in and as I whisked, I then re-read for the next step and saw that OOPS. I only needed 1/2 cup sugar. The other half was for the topping. I panicked and splashed more cream into the saucepan thinking I’d just double my recipe. But then I found that I only had three eggs left in the fridge that weren’t hardboiled.

I don’t know the science involved with the egg-to-cream ratio but it was already screwed so I just went for it. The dessert was very sweet, somewhat soupy but totally edible and that’s the key to my cooking success.

Grindhouse turned out to be a perfect way to spend Easter Sunday. When I say it’s completely off the rails, I’m understating it. It’s funny and violent and gory and over-the-top and worth the time and trouble if you’re up for a B-thriller double feature. Feature one is zombies with Rose McGowan and the machine gun prosthetic leg. Feature two is Kurt Russell as a crazy muscle car guy stalking beautiful girls.

The only bummer was that we got home about 4pm and then I had to rush to get dinner on the table and that made me cranky.

The decorating eggs were already hardboiled but I’d spent the morning with the brulee snafu and now I was peeling potatoes and organizing the chicken and making a salad and I had a loaf of bread going but the timing was fubar because the movie was so long. I wasn’t up for one more thing that would make a mess.

Bob wanted to do it and did a great job although I think the idea of decorating eggs was more fun than actually doing it. I took photos, of course, and will add later.