Campy Food...or the Wonders of Hot Charcoal and Cast Iron...

we recently went car camping with about nine other families... pretty fun...

it's been awhile since i did any camp cooking. prolly at least 10 years or more? and the things i cooked then were pretty basic or at least, mostly somewhat pre-prepared or packaged foods. not that there's anything wrong with that...just wanted to try my hand at a bit more...difficult? challenging? i duuno. i settled for the middle ground.

the most challenging thing i think we tried was using the dutch oven. i am 150% glad we bought that! it was totally awesome! we used it three times for biscuits which came out excellent 2 of the three times. we left 'em in a bit long once and the bottoms were a bit black...but it was still fine. i would continue to take that along just for the biscuits alone. oh what a few hot briquets and some dough will do...awesome!

jane (user of the dutch oven) also made a apple/pineapple dump cake. this consisted of 2 boxes of yellow cake mix, a can of pineapple chunks and a can of apple pie filling....oh, and a few pats of butter. it didn't turn out to her expectations but still tasted pretty damn good. instead of a cake-like top we got more of a crumble like top. this is one we'll experiment with since the basic premise was easy and with so few ingredients...it is ripe recipe for jane to experiment with. i'm looking forward to sampling the future permutations of this one...oh yes i am...

we did the basic hobo stew for dinner the first nite. potatoes, ground meat, carrots, onions. wrap it in tin foil and throw it in the fire. ok, some of these burned. but they still tasted pretty stinkin' good. here's the changes for the next time for this one...

ground beef (or turkey)
ground sausage (the calabrese seems best but i think chorizo would work just as well)
chopped onions
chopped bell peppers
baby carrots
sliced mushrooms
sliced bacon

season w/ salt, pepper, garlic powder, worcester and steak sauce

instead of throwing directly in the fire...i'll place it on hot coals instead and check after 15mins rather than 20.

breakfasts were the best. besides the biscuits, we made skillet potatoes as well as scrambled eggs and sausages. i placed the cast iron skillet on the grate while i was building the fire and cooked the morning bacon in it. all that bacon fat rendered was put to good use with sliced potatoes roasted in foil from the previous nite. add onions, thyme, rosemary and some more diced bacon and it's ready to go. the last morning i added some cheddar cheese...yeah, beat that Denny's...

dinner the 2nd nite was chicken skewers...meh and all my fault that it was meh. the chicken pieces were way too small. i marinated them in white wine, olive oil and lemon juice w/ just a bit of soy sauce. i think bigger chunks would've cooked better and tasted better. again, my lack of foresight and it will be corrected next time around. i did also bbq a tri-tip. easy peasy and oh soooo good. i'll remember that as well.

the ahn's also provided kimchee jigae...camp style, which i guess means kimchee jigae w/ leftover meats. you know what? excellent!!! spicey-salty goodness! however, you gotta eat it w/ rice...otherwise the experience isn't the same. not sure i'd like it w/ vienna sausages but Spam is a winner as well as i would think would be regular hot dogs. i think that's one i'll put down as one to learn to make...

next time?

well... i think main dish-wise, i'd stick to roasting or bbqing larger portions of meat. those seem to be the best for campfire cooking. tri-tip, leg of lamb, beef or pork ribs, short ribs all would be easy to prep beforehand and cook. i would prolly just use the camp stove for cooking vegetables if not roasted. the cast iron skillet is awesome...i may get another one...a bigger one since it's so awesome!!!

stews...

we talked about doing more stews. i may want to get another dutch oven just for that....or at least a cast iron pot. something i can throw on the fire, add meat and vegetables to with a bit of water and just let simmer until done. the other dutch oven could be used for bread or dessert...

speaking of the dutch oven...

yeah...me like...

a friend gave me a pasta recipe that i'd like to try. lasagna in a dutch oven. sounds easy and delicious. there are also the bread possibilities and dessert possibilities that i'm dreaming of tasting. that's jane's territory... i can't bake to save my life.

hash of some sort is another possibility. roasting beets and potatoes to make hash would be awesome...hmmmm....yeah...

all in all, a good experience with lessons learned to be corrected the next go around...hopefully sooner rather than later...

...and oh yeah, grabbing logs in the pit are best done with gloves on or using utensils. bare hands no matter how careful leave lasting impressions...

Scream Sorbet

ok...

just a reference to this establishment because i saw them recently @ the Pleasanton Farmer's Market. i know this doesn't fit in the category i created this blog for but seeing them made me want to write...

i'm not a huge sorbet fan...prolly because i like that creamier texture of ice cream...or even frozen yogurt...

but this stuff is better than any ice cream i've ever had save a super vanilla bean vanilla i had a few years ago...and it's been my daughters weekly treat @ the San Leandro Farmer's Market.

there's that scene in Willy Wonka where Gene Wilder is extolling the flavors of his wallpaper?

"The strawberries taste like strawberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries..."

that's what i feel like saying after tasting each one. whatever the pairing, you get the most intense flavor essence of that ingredient. sweet corn, dark chocolate, strawberry, bartlett pear, pistachio, cashew, persimmon...you get the picture...

i can't wait until they have their own shop...which i hear is coming soon.

so if you see 'em at your local farmer's market or @the ferry building in SF? give 'em a try...pretty awesome

i got nothing...part deux...

so once again i found myself scratching my head as to what to make for a get together. this time, mostly my fault as i prolly could've spent more time thinking about what to make and not put certain restrictions on myself...

#1 it had to be a side
#2 it needed to be something that i could bring easily and not require reheating
#3 and prolly the most difficult, i needed to use something from my farm fresh delivery

so this was for an after church gathering for our asian connection group with an asian new year theme... oh, let's make that #4...

dang it!

so i cheated...and went easy...because i had nothing and by the time i really needed to decide there was no time to run to the store. ok...what do i have in the fridge... frozen shelled edamame and frozen corn....hmmmm...

in the pantry? i have some shallots and some cilantro from farm fresh and some soy, sesame, ginger dressing from trader joe's...

done.

2 packs of frozen edamame
1 small pack of frozen corn
2 large shallots, diced
1 small hand-full of cilantro, rough chopped
trader joe's soy-vay dressing
white wine vinegar
sugar
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper

i pickled the diced shallots over night in a mixture of white wine vinegar (in hindsight red wine vinegar better for the color), sugar and kosher salt.

the edamame and corn i let defrost overnight in cold water and then heated in the morning before adding into a mixing bowl with the sesame ginger dressing, shallots and cilantro. kosher salt and ground pepper to taste and done!

we'll see how it goes. it tastes...ok to me. nothing spectacular...actually, rather ordinary...maybe under-whelming... we'll see...

i'll prolly write more about the asian group at church another time? i just wanted to get this one down before i forgot...

happy eating!

i got nothing...really...

so i get together semi-regularly with a couple other families for brunch. these are friends from college and...how in teh world did i meet the kim's? oh yeah...softball. well, every couple of moths we get together on a saturday at someone's house to cook for each other, catch up...hang out let the kids play. it's usually a pretty good time all around...

usually, i'll just help cook eggs and make some sort of potato dish. i'm kinda picky about scrambled eggs which is why i offer to help cook them and taters...well, they're just super easy. hash browns? add some rosemary, thyme, parmesan and bacon fat and it's killer. some spanish chorizo makes roasted potatoes taste pretty awesome.

well...this time there was another family coming...no worries. found out last minute they were bringing potatoes. i got worries. everything else was pretty much covered. the fong's were making a breakfast egg and sausage bake (turned out to have taters in it as well). the kim's were bringing mini-cinabons and fruit. i had no time and no ideas. i went to the supermarket that night and figured toast, eggs and mushrooms? ok...i'll settle for that. i can make something with that...right? now what i made sisn't taste teh way i wanted but i was able to re-create it later and make it taste much better. here's what i ended up doing...

scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms in cream on toast...

eggs
crimini mushrooms
french baguette
parmesan cheese
cognac
heavy whipping cream
shallots
fresh rosemary, thyme and chives
salt & pepper
fresh lemon juice

the mushrooms were sauteed in butter and olive oil with the the shallots rosemary and thyme. i added cognac and when almost finished...along with the slightest squeeze of lemon juice. added a bit of the heavy whipping cream . set aside for later.

baguette was toasted in a pan with a bit of olive oil.

eggs are beaten and scrambled soft. cook over med/low heat. fold constantly and pull off heat when still the slightest bit runny. add salt pepper.

put a small amount of the egg on top of a slice of toast and spoon the creamed mushroom mixture on top. garnish with shaved or grated parmesan and some finely chopped chive.

it came out ok. not sure if it's worth trying again but it was fun to steal this idea from someone. :)

happy communing!

eating together...

there is something that i definitely like about eating together the way my family did growing up. not so much that we ate "together", but just how the meal was really shared. i like this idea whether at a home or at a restaurant.

all the food is set out in front of you and each person just fetches what they want at the moment, set it in their rice bowl or on a small plate in front of them. there was even a few communal bowls for bones and other non-edible parts. rice was in the rice cooker but it was a single person's job to make sure that those bowls were filled and down before calling everyone to come eat. with my mom, there was usually some soup or other of some stated but dubious medicinal property. the family gets seated and eating ensues. i've long since realized my error in forgoing the soup on more occasions than not...

i still prefer this to eating at a fancy restaurant where my meal comes neatly put together on a plate and set in front of me. don't get me wrong, i enjoy this too! just there's is something more comforting and entertaining about really sharing in the community food bowl/plate.

ok...

i don't miss fighting my siblings for the choices of meat or vegetable? but that too was part of the experience. hoarding food is frowned upon. you take only what you can eat in say...i dunno...three, four mouthfuls? i don't know if this was the case for everyone, but i noticed nobody in my family nor at any other dinner i went to selected more than this. it's probably just part of really sharing and being respectful. to this day when we're at a restaurant, i will pour the tea for everyone else. i was told by my brothers that being the youngest it was my job too. not sure if this is really true of my culture or just my brothers getting over again on me. either way, it doesn't really matter because for me...it's a reminder that no matter who i am or am with...it is a privilege to be able to serve your family and friends.

which is probably why i like to cook for family and friends. it's my way of being able to say thank you or just letting them know i appreciate them. i'm not trained in cooking nor do i cook exceptionally well? but i can get by and feed myself and others. i can usually come up with something pretty fast and hey, kids like what i make for them...prolly because i still remember what i liked to eat at their age. mostly, i enjoy the community that surrounds the getting, making and eating the food...and i love...LOVE...being able to sit, eat, talk and laugh with the people that surround me.

so for Leung Family Chinese New Year dinner...for teh first time ever...i made salmon. salmon (at least cooked, raw, smoked, cured i'm good) and i have a long history of distrust and dis-like which i have just recently overcome. not really knowing what to do...i went simple.

Salmon Fillets
Lemon
Fresh Dill
Butter
Dry White Wine
Salt and Pepper

i seasoned the salmon fillets with salt, pepper, dill and lemon juice about an hour before cooking. the fillets were then grilled in olive oil and butter skin side down for 3/4 of the cook time and then flipped for just the briefest of moments to finish. i added a bit of the white wine in the pan at the end..

i made a light sauce of butter, white wine, dill and lemon juice (my sister had no zester so i let the peels cook in the liquid a bit) and some supremed lemon sections for garnish...

next time? lemon zest, perhaps shallots and read thru a few recipes to figure out what i did right and wrong.

there you have it...now off to get some lunch...

food is more than fuel...it's...

well, well...

you'd think that with so many folks out there writing about food (especially after the "Julie & Julia" movie) if i were "blog" about anything...i'd choose something other than food as the subject of my cyber writing endeavors. well i did, it's just that i'm adding this one about food as well...heh heh

ok...so i lie. this isn't just about food, it's about people in my life as well. the ones i eat with, cook with, fellowship and commune with. it's about the those times we get together to share in a meal, whether self-cooked or bought, and share in each other. this little page will be about those experiences and what we ate. you'll know when i'm lazy if i just list food that was consumed...hahhahaha

food to me and the majority of my friends and family is more than just "fuel" for our bodies...it's a vehicle and medium which allows us to connect with each other. it's prolly been that way from the beginning of our human existence. food just naturally draws us together. Christ used meals or feeding for several of his miracles as well as for His final gatherings with his Disciples (pre and post Resurrection). He uses the act of sharing a meal as the thing which symbolically represents his sacrifice for us and serves as the daily reminder as believers to share in the honoring a remembrance of His gift of sacrifice. i feel it serves as much for this purpose as it does to bring us together as a community

now it's not the only reason we get together. but hey, it is what we use an excuse, whether it's meeting to catch up, celebrate or just hang out. it can be meeting up on a saturday for dim sum...or brunch. it can be a friday night dinner get together...after church lunches and dinners. the reason doesn't matter. what happens when we gather does...as well as what we eat!

so there you have it and here we go!

i leave you initially with this bit o' wisdom...

"Food at its best is about communication and communion"
-Alton Brown

and away we go...