Deep Fried Meeup

Fresh Veggie Tempura
1 c flour (slightly less than)
1 T rice flour
pinch baking powder
1 egg
water
peanut oil for frying

non-watery vegetables cut into strips
onion cut into rings
shrimp
bananas or plaintains
fiddle head fern fronds

Put rice flour into a 1c measuring cup, add in all purpose flour until the cup is filled.  Crack egg into a measuring cup and fill the rest with water.  Mix flours and baking powder together in a small bowl and make a small well. Whisk egg and water together. Pour water into the well, and mix together. Batter should be the consistency of pancake batter.

Heat 2″ of oil in a deep pan until it reaches 375 degrees. Dip veggies in batter and lower them into oil.

(Serve the bananas sprinkled with powdered sugar and drizzled with honey or maple syrup.)

Dipping Sauce
3 T honey
1 T soy sauce
juice from 1/2 lime
1/2 t chili paste (optional)

Warm honey mix with all the ingredients.

Wontons

1pkg wonton skins
1pkg cream cheese
1 egg, whisked
peanut oil

Heat 2″ (or so) of peanut oil in a deep pan until it reaches 350degrees. (You do not want it warmer than this or the wontons will blow out.)

While oil is heating, take a wonton skin and brush outside seams of one side with egg. Place a dollop of cream cheese (or sauteed mushrooms, goat cheese, nuts or whatever) in the center of the wonton. Fold wonton up – no egged corner to egged corner and press sides together, leaving the far corners unpressed if you want to insert one into the other to make a little crown shape or flat, if that’s what you want to do.

When oil is heated slide wontons in to the pan so that the oil will splash away from you. Cook until the wonton is browned, flip it over and cook until that side is browned. Make sure that the temp doesn’t go over 350 or they will blow out. Serve with dipping sauce (above.)

Jalapeno Poppers

Breaking into Bread

No-Knead Bread

Published: New York Times, November 8, 2006
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

For more info: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html

Food Gift 2.0

Ultimate Brownie in a Jar

This brownie is the based off of Baked‘s brownie in their first cookbook.  However, I’ve adjusted it and stuck it in a jar to give someone as a gift.  Like, super amazing brownies that you give to someone in a jar and they can make… whenever they want.  It’s super awesome (if you ask me.)

In a 1 quart jar pour in 1c white sugar followed by 1c brown sugar.  Chop very finely 11oz dark chocolate. Add that to the jar.  Add in 1T instant espresso or coffee powder.  Put lid on jar.  In a bag put 1 1/4 c flour and 1 t salt.  Close bag and tie it around the jar with these instructions:

Ultimate Brownies

You will need 1c butter, cut into 1T squares, 5 eggs and the contents of this jar.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a 9×13 pan.

Simmer water in a saucepan over medium heat.  Remove powder mixture from jar.  Empty jar into a large bowl and add in butter cubes.  Put the bowl on the saucepan and let contents melt together, stirring with a scraper as needed.

When chocolate & butter has melted together, take it off of heat.  Let cool for 10 minutes.  Add in  3 eggs and stir until completely incorporated, then do the same with the last two eggs.  Add in flour packet and mix in until combined.

Pour into 9×13 pan.  Bake in oven for 30 minutes.

Caramel Sauce

1c sugar
6T butter
1c cream

In a heavy bottomed pan with high sides pour in a thin layer of sugar. Cook over medium to medium-high heat until sugar begins to melt. Lightly mix it around so that the sugar doesn’t burn, but not so much that big lumps form. (Big lumps take longer to melt, which is not optimal.) When it is all liquid cook it until it is as dark as you want it to be without it burning. (This really depends on how high your tolerance for culinary risk is. It’s a very thin line between liquid sugar and burned sugar. If it starts to smoke, turn off the heat immediately. Until then, it’s anybody’s game.)

When sugar is as dark as you would like it to be, take it off heat and add in butter. Stir it in small circles in a big circle around the outside of the pan until butter is entirely combined.

Chocolate Truffles

8oz dark chocolate, chopped
8oz milk chocolate, chopped

1 1/3 cream
11T great butter
2T – 1/4c booze or flavored vinegar (optional)
1c cocoa power

Line a 9×13 pan with plastic wrap.

Melt chocolates in a large bowl over a saucepan, until liquid. Remove from heat and add in cream, stirring in small circles around the edge of the pan. Use stick blender to add in butter 1T at a time. Add in next T of butter as soon as the last one is incorporated. Add in booze until it reaches desired flavor. Pour into 9×13 pan. Stick in refrigerator overnight.

Flip truffle mixture out onto another plate or pan. Cut into 1″ squares. Roll each square until it’s in a rough spiracle shape. Toss in cocoa powder. Put onto parchment lined cookie sheet and chill. Serve to someone you want to make happy!

Tapas Night – Churros with Thick Hot Chocolate

We had a lovely tapas night with a lot of great food, wine and talk. This is the recipes for the churros with chocolate I made, hopefully others will post their recipes in the comments here.

xxoo,

- K

Churros
2c water
1/4c brown sugar
1t salt
2/3c butter
2c white flour
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2t vanilla extract
1/2c sugar
1t ground cinnamon, depending on taste
peanut oil for frying

Put flour into bowl of Kitchenaid mixer. Boil water, butter, sugar and salt over high heat. With the mixer running with paddle attachment pour water in slowly. When dough has formed, add in eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

You can let dough rest, covered in a refrigerator over night if you wish. Let dough come up to room temperature before you fry.

Heat oil up to 375°f. Take a pastry bag with a large star tip, fold the top of the bag outward and fill with dough. (You can rest the bag in a tall glass, tip down.) Put sugar and cinnamon in a small paper bag and shake up. Line a cookie sheet with paper towels. When oil is up to heat, pipe churro dough into oil in 4″ (or so) lengths. Flip the churros when they are dark brown and cook other side. Remove from oil, drain for a moment on paper towels. While still hot, toss in paper bag until covered with sugar and cinnamon.

Serve with thick chocolate.

Thick Hot Chocolate
4c whole milk
10oz dark or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2t rice flour
1/4 – 1/3c sugar
2 T kahlua (optional)

Heat milk over medium-low heat. . When milk gets warm, whisk in all the rice flour and chocolate in 1oz portions. When all of the chocolate is whisked in, taste and add in more chocolate or rice flour if you want it stronger/thicker. Whisk in sugar in portions tasting after each addition until it reaches your desired sweetness. Add in Kahlua. Serve in espresso cups (or mugs) with churros.

Dinner in 60 Minutes with Tastebud Tart

A sampling of MN cheeses with breads from Grass Roots Gourmet greets our guests.

Molly introduced us to Kitchen in the Market and her co-kitcheneers.

Julia for a Night

Last night we had our first in what I hope to be a series of pot luck Sunday suppers with themes to help us learn how to cook better. For this first one we tried our hand at Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Mastering, which is now, almost 50 years after it was published, a number 1 best seller. I love this for a few reasons, first, Julia rocked. Second, because French food celebrates the seasons and the places that grow the finest ingredients possible. And third, because it signals to me that people are willing to start looking at food anew by going back to the beginning. The french paradox isn’t a paradox, we are meant to eat cream and butter. When we do eat cream and butter, we naturally eat less and stay full longer. If butter and cream really made people fat we would have been fat all along – not just in the past 20 years since we’ve become fat-phobic.

So why not embrace Julia’s love of cream and butter as well her masterpiece? Particularly since we have such awesome dairy products in Minnesota. In my book one of the best frenchy uses for butter is making croissants. They’re also really easy to make. Two things you need to look out for are heat (if your butter melts there’s no point in going further) and time. (It doesn’t take much active time but it does take all day.) I promise that the recipe that follows works.

I served these croissants with the foods that follow the recipes. Hopefully, folks will add in their recipes. As always, the food, company and conversation were excellent. I hope you can join us next time.

Croissant

dinner + movie 7/2/09

Did you miss FRESH & Tasty, our 3 course dinner and screening of the movie FRESH at Corner Table? Really? What were you thinking? Oh, well, I guess you can just look at these pictures and pretend you were there. That ought to do it.

No. It won’t do. Won’t do at all! Okay, so here’s what you do:

1. Go to the Birchwood Cafe.
2. Have yourself a tasty snack and buy a copy of the FRESH screening kit.
3. Invite over your best friends, family members, farmers and a mayor.
4. Grab yourself some chefs and cook up some dishes featuring local foods and Thousand Hills grass fed beef.
5. Feed your guests.
6. Show the movie, outside if possible.

That’s better. Now all you need to do is study these pictures to show you just what you need to do.

First there is some cooking. Make sure you have lots of cooks.

Guests were greeted by a bunch of discussion questions about food and what should be done/if something should be done to make it safer. (More on this on tobemrsmarv.com, soon.)

Then comes the serving of some drinks.

A small bite to start off the food. (No, I don’t know what it is.)

Look at us gettin’ all inspired!

I am probably the luckiest girl in the world. I don’t mean to be, I just am. I’m friends with several of the best chefs in Minnesota. Not only are they great cooks, but they have created philosophies and ways of doing thing which makes each them completely unique and wonderful. To top that off they even love to teach, which means that I get to call them up and say, “Hey, what’s on your mind? Anything you want to share with some of my favorite cooks?”

When I asked my friend Scott Graden, owner/chef of the award winning New Scenic Cafe in Duluth that question and he answered, “Inspiration is everywhere and it’s so much more important than recipes and ingredients. I’d like to talk about that.” In my head I shouted, “woo hoo!” Then we chatted and brainstormed on how to go about doing a workshop on inspiration, came up with a plan and that he promptly forgot.

I, however, did not. It turns out that the things that inspire him most are the people and the land around him. Hence, on our weekend in Duluth we got to meet with Stephen Dahl his herring fisherman and David Rogotzke his maple syrup maker and salmon fisherman.

It really was the best adult field trip for cooks ever.

GMOs, Food Allergies and Us! Oh My!

Hello cooks!

I was putting together a list of resources for the folks joining us for dinner + movie at Corner Table (Go forth! Buy tickets!) next week and I just couldn’t help but feel like this information is so important for all of us that I’d just post the list a bit early so that everyone can learn and we can have an really excellent discussion on these topics with those who come to the dinner.

As anyone who has been within earshot of me knows, I’m really most interested in good food. For me, good food is good food, and a lot of the time I don’t much care where that food comes from.  It just so happens that animals and vegetables that are treated well are the best food.  So, I  get to eat yummy stuff and feel superior.  Yea!

I don’t feel like I have the luxury to do that anymore.  I think we have to start fighting.  See, what we’ve done is sold our food system, and by extension, our bodies to corporate America.  And what we’ve gotten for that is obesity and disease.  Now, I’m not against corporate America, but I’ve worked for large corporations and really, they don’t care about you.  It’s not that they’re not caring people or out for world domination.  It’s just that they care about making their shareholders money and what their stock prices are at each day.  That’s what they’re there for, making money.  If keeping you healthy and giving you awesome food was what they existed for, then they would do that.  They’re not.

See, we have to make it so that we’re a priority for them, so I made you this list of stuff to look at.

If you haven’t seen it, you should check out The Future of Food.  It’s a very important critique of food corporations and their modification of the DNA of foods like corn and soy beans and it’s free to watch on hulu.

Do you keep rolling your eyes at all of the freaking out about food allergies in the news? I do. But allergies in kids under the age of 18 are up, way up:

In terms of the absolute number of children below 18 who were hospitalized each year with diagnoses related to food allergies, there has been a sharp increase, too. From 2004 to 2006, the average annual number of discharges related to food allergies for this group was 9,537. This is marked higher than the corresponding figures of 4,135 from 2001 to 2003, and 2,615 from 1998 to 2000.

Holy crap!  That’s more than double over in two years!  And that’s hospitalization – not some little sniffly business.  This specific quote is from a blog Natural News – but you can find the same information from traditional news sources as well as the CDC. There are several problems with the loose way this data was collected, but the experts agree that the numbers are way too high to be an anomaly.

Natural News goes on to talk about possible reasons:

Broadly speaking, the root causes of allergic reactions are a state of over-toxicity in the body, or poor health and a weak immune system in general. When the body is overloaded with toxins, it cannot cope as well as it should with certain foods.

(If that doesn’t make fodder for an interesting conversation on keeping our families healthy, I don’t know what does.  And I’ve stopped with the eye rolling, turns out that was just mean.)

More info:

UK article on the link of hyperactivity to food colorings

Allergy Kids – an organization set up to inform and advocate for kids with allergies.

So just in case I’ve depressed you so much that you’re going to have to eat an entire cake sitting cross legged in a dark closet all by yourself, here are some links with information you need and ways that you can avoid the worst offenders and/or join some great advocacy groups to try to instigate change for the better.  (Remember if one person claps in a room, they just look weird: whole bunch of people clapping makes a big loud noise. Noise is good.)

Vegetables to buy organic

Additives banned in Europe still legal in the US

What’s on my food?

Slow Food’s movement to get real foods in school

Eat Local America!

And last but certainly not least Cooking Minnesota!  I plan to continue on with the classes and events I started last year creating great food from scratch and building a community of like-minded folks to share information as well as strategies to incorporate whole, artesanal, yummy foods into our hectic schedules.  We’re working on classes on curing, cheese and yogurt making, creative bread making, beer brewing, mother sauces, how to deal with ingredients you’ve never used before and more events with my favorite chefs.  We’re also working on a Harvest Extravaganza™ at our member Michelle’s farm.  We will have a day full of workshops on subjects from preserving herbs and vegetables and canning to how to design your kitchen to be more green.  (We’re even working on some fun stuff for the kids!)

I hope this didn’t get to be too much. It is a lot.  It’s also very important.  I do hope you join me with the clapping – I think we can make a lot of noise.

Love always,

Kris

FRESH & Tasty (dinner + movie)

Award winning restaurant, Corner Table, and cooking group, Cooking Minnesota, have paired up to do 3 nights of dinner + movie at Corner Table. The dinners will be 3 course meals featuring the best that harvest season has to offer, served family style. Beer and wine will be available for purchase.

After dinner we will be moving outside to watch FRESH: New thinking on what we’re eating. The movie takes on the large subject on reinventing our food system. It’s already sold out 3 showings in Minneapolis.

Beer and popcorn, both locally produced, will be available while we watch the movie and facilitate a discussion about how home cooks can incorporate conscientious food choices for our families, health and planet.

The cost for the whole evening is $55 (dinner, movie & popcorn.)
Dates are June 30, July 1 & July 2.
Dinner at 6:30 and move at 9:00 PM
Seats are limited to 40 each night.
Tickets will also be available for just viewing the movie at $15.

Tickets will be available through Corner Table or Cooking MN.

About FRESH
A film by ana Sofia joanes FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.

http://www.freshthemovie.com

About Corner Table
Corner Table is a restaurant that listens to the fields, farms, pastures, and seasons that surround us. That source of inspiration guides our creativity and our entire menu, which is crafted from foods sourced locally and in season from responsible family farms. This approach is completely sustainable, and it’s grounded in our respect for our history, nature’s perfection, and our place in the world. Corner Table will be celebrating its five-year anniversary during this event.

Nicollet Avenue at 43rd Street, Minneapolis MN | 612.823.0011