Cooking to Taste

Kitchen Garden Progress - Week 5

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:50:00 +0000


Beets, beets & beets. These root veggies are delicious on the grill

Is the secret to our garden's success the legendary Willow Glen soil, or my ridiculously green thumb?

Five weeks in and the vegetable garden is taking hold. Kristi's overabundant caution, and a penchant for humus and chicken manure, has so far proven successful.

Kristi and I set out at the end of March to create a sustainable garden that would serve as the primary source of vegetables this Summer, and provide the ingredients for canning experiments.

See the complete photo gallery on tumblr

In our Week 1 post at the beginning of April, we shared our garden line up of veggies and herbs. Since then we've added a small strawberry patch, green beans, cucumbers, half dozen habenero & ghost chili plants, and a compost pile that I constructed from salvaged bricks. Took us better part of an afternoon, but now we have a perpetual source of plant nutrients, and food waste (minus meat products) is diverted away from landfill.

Use twine to help sugar snap peas grow tall.

Our home is located in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose. Supposedly, the soil in Willow Glen is very rich. We didn't take any risks. Kristi and I added an additional 20+ bags of humus and organic potting soil from South Bay Materials on Angela Street. This place is the best kept secret for landscaping.

Dogs love dirt!

Once we had the plants in the ground, the paver paths locked in, and the mini dog fence up, we opted to have the sprinkler system installed by a professional.

Looking back at week 1, we've come a long way, and we still have the rest of the Summer to look forward to. We'll follow up on this with tips from lessons we've learned in our experiences in gardening.

Yams add yum factor to salad

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 05:56:00 +0000

Quick, off the top of your head - name somebody you know that doesn't like yams?

Chances are, you can't. They're sweet, savory, filling - one of the ultimate comfort foods, and the perfect reason why yams belong in your salad.

Kristi stumbled upon this culinary stroke of genius one night, and I can't thank her enough.

If you're on a plan, such as a strictly Real Food diet, it's easy to get stuck in the salad rut, because salads are fairly quick & easy to make; they're healthy and low in carbs and fat. However, yams are, in fact, a good source of healthy carbohydrates. They're a good source of fiber and slow sugar - which your body processes at a better rate that high starch carbs (potatoes, white bread, pasta).

Learn more about the health benefits of yams

Adding yams to salad? Yes. here's our adapted recipe: season and portion to suit your needs.

Simple greens and grilled chicken salad

Mixed greens of your choice - add arugula :)
Sliced radish (3-4)
Sliced carrots (3-4)
Diced grilled chicken 1-2 breasts
1 yam - microwaved to cook, halved, rub w/olive oil and grill for approx. 2 minutes each side
Olive oil as dressing.

Season to taste with any of the following:
- salt
- fresh ground pepper
- thyme
- herbs d'provence
- fresh chopped basil
- cayenne pepper

2013 Kitchen Garden - Week 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:27:00 +0000

Last month we bought a house with a stellar kitchen, big backyard and lots of space to garden. After clearing out the weeds, we set out on planning, and planting our garden. We chose not to start from seed with this garden, as its our first year working with this soil, and I'm lazy like that.

Kristi used cloud-based garden planning software, GrowVeg.com. Given that Kristi and I both work at high tech companies, we applied our nerd-ish best practices to our home projects (we opted out of creating a PRD, however, we are developing a garden road map for 2013-2014).

Out key objectives were to create a garden:

Where food is easily attainable
Serve as our primary source of herbs for the Summer/Fall
Can be eaten off the plant and/or preserved
Provides a sustainable source of nutrient-rich soil
Remains organic - no pesticides, no GMO seed, plants

Deciding to take this project on in phases, we prepared the area by clearing out the plot and turned over the soil by hand. Following that, we designated a corner of the garden to serve as the compost pile.

So, what did we plant in Phase 1?

Let's start with the herbs:

- Basil (Lemon Basil, Sweet Basil, and Herb Basil)
- Terragon (2 plants)
- Dill - (1 plant)
- Sage (1 plant)
- Cilantro (6 plants - turns into coriander)
- Rosemary (2 plants)
- Spearmint
- Peppermint
- Italian Parsley
- Oregano (2 plants)
- Thyme (1 plant)

Veggie Vegetables

A relative of mine runs Love Apple Farm, a kitchen garden for many high end restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. So we have a lot to live up to here.

We have to have tomatoes. started with 5 tomato plants, and I can't wait to try the new one we've never planted in the past.

- Green Grape tomatoes (delish)

- Yellow Pear (my favorite)
- Sweet 100 (first time with these)
- Cherry Tomato - 2, solid standby

Peppers/Chilis
- Jalapeno
- Serrano
- Thai Chili Peppers
- Caribbean Red Hot Pepper
- (plan to plant Fresno chilis and habaneros as well - and ghost chili if I can find it)

Leafy Greens
- Argula (5 sprouts)
- Assorted Kale
- Rainbow Chard (6 sprouts)

Other Great Vegetables

- Artichoke
- Carrots (GARDENING TIP: Tomatoes love carrots. Sow your carrot seeds between your tomato plants)
- Sunflowers
- Sugar Snap Peas (EXPERIMENT: I planted the peas and the sunflowers close together in hopes that the pea vines will climb the sunflower stalks.
- Zucchini (I think I planted way to many seeds, but we'll see what comes of it)

Next steps: Layout a paver path with flagstones, construct a compost bin, plant beets, lemongrass, cucumber, a strawberry patch, beans, the above mentioned peppers, install a drip system and get some ladybugs!

Using basil in your Spring salad? Hell yes!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:08:00 +0000

In 2009, TheKithcn blogged about adding fresh basil to green salads. We couldn't agree more.

Traditionally thought of as an herb or spice element to accent dishes, we've found through experimentation that actually adding sliced basil (perhaps half a cup or so) to your salad adds a dimension of freshness and a zing that can replace lemon zest, and even the vinegar in your dressing.

As a big advocate of basil, I urge you to give it a shot. It perfectly compliments arugula and spinach salads. Plus, like I mentioned previously, you'll find that you may not need to use a vinegar based dressing. If fact, I (Don) have been able to convert my wife to become a "olive oil only" dressing user. The simpler, the better folks!

TIP: To avoid bruising the basil (yes it bruises), roll the leaves up before slicing. The result is clean, bruise-free strips of fresh basil.

Quick Tip - How to keep radish fresh

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:42:00 +0000

Here's a quick tip to help keep radish, beets, carrots - pretty much any root vegetable.

When you get home from the store/farmers market/garden, chop the stems off the radishes. Wash them in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel.

It's best to store them in your crisper drawer in a zip lock bag instead of the plastic bag you brought it home in.

This will help keep your radish (and other root veggies) fresh and crunchy for at least a week.

Simple Napa-Montreal Poultry Rub

noreply@blogger.com (Kristi Baker) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:26:00 +0000

Montreal steak rub on chicken. Yes, and it's delicious. I also add some pink salt, black pepper and smoked salt. Add a little olive oil and you have a quick and tasty rub to use on poultry (or fish).

I call it my Napa chicken rub because we sourced the key components in Napa, California - primarily at Oxbow Public Market. The place is like a miniature boutique mall for foodies. Just about all of the olive oil in our house comes from the Olive Press, and Whole Spice is a great source for hard to find herbs and spices (including the Montreal seasoning blend used in my rub). Another local purveyor of somewhat snotty kitchen and home goods is Napa Style. They carry a line of really good smoked salts as well as Calabria style sauces & pastes.

I'm finding that more often than not, the more simple the recipe, the better the dish. Tonight I grilled chicken breasts with the Napa rub and served it on a bed of baby kale and sliced radish.

That's about all you need to make a great rub.

Pretentious Tuesday - Baked Cod & Roasted Cauliflower

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:47:00 +0000

I'm drawing a line in the sand.

It gets easy to find yourself in a rut, making the same dishes over and over because the dish is either easy to make, the ingredients are cheap, your comfortable with the meal...name your excuse.

Growing up in my parents' household those "go-to" meals were meatloaf and spaghetti.

We all live very busy lives and it gets hard when you have to come home from work to take care of your family, cook dinner only to look forward to logging back into your work computer again later that evening.

I recognize that this rhythm is tough, and you've gotta eat. But it doesn't always have to be the some old meal prepared the same way over and over (I'm guilty of it myself. Ask Kristi about my spicy rubbed grilled chicken).

So here's my solution: I declare Pretentious Tuesday to be a day that no matter what stand-by meal I make, I prepare it differently, and describe it with as many snotty, foodie snob buzzwords as humanly possible. It mixes things up, even if it's just a psychological boost and it gives my snarky alter-ego the opportunity to make fun of the foodie elite blogger/critic/home-cook/author/food porn hipster that exists in all of us.

On my inaugural Pretentious Tuesday dinner, I offer Spice rubbed baked cod and rustic roasted cauliflower over a bed of local greens.

Key ingredients

Wild cod
4 cloves of garlic - whole, unpeeled
Half Mayan onion, thinly sliced
Mixed greens
Half lemon, sliced
1 pad of organic butter
Rub for fish

Murray salt - no substitutes
Crushed habenero chili flakes
Ground black pepper
Fresh thyme - hand shredded
Herbs de Provence

1 head of cauliflower
4 cloves of garlic, whole, unpeeled
Ground pepper
Himalayan salt
Extra virgin olive oil

Cooking the Cauliflower
Throw the cauliflower ingredients on a roasting pan and cook in the oven at 425 degrees for 35-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cooking the Cod
Spray coconut oil (or Pam) on a baking sheet. Apply the rub ingredients to your level of heat, taste. Scatter the sliced onion and garlic on the same sheet. Squeeze the lemon over everything and throw on the pan. Cook at 400 degrees for approximately 12 minutes, but check regularly. Remove when flaky.

Let us know about your Pretentious Tuesday meals.

Leftover Buffalo wing pasta is tastier than you think

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 04:37:00 +0000

So, I got a little over zealous with the chicken wings last weekend. The 49er's were playing a couple of friends were coming over. Yeah, so I ordered way too much food for 3 adults. How much, you ask??

30 buffalo wings
17 buffalo chicken strips
2 large baskets of fries (Wing Stop has the best fries - with the exception of In n' Out)

Kristi's out of town this week on business and I have a full order of chicken strips sitting in the fridge that have to go before she comes home on Wednesday. I opted for using the fried chicken in a pasta. It's simple, easy and fast.

Here's what I used:

- Leftover fried chicken (breaded chicken breast, if you prefer)
- 6 or so cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 12oz bag of fresh broccoli (in a microwavable steam bag)
- Sun dried tomatoes - figure 2-3 spoonfuls per person)
- Basil infused olive oil - or just plain old olive oil
- Thyme
- Salt & pepper
- Whole wheat pasta
- 1 pad of butter
- 1 squeezed lemon or so...

In a pan, saute the garlic with olive oil, thyme and pepper - add a little white wine to prevent the garlic from browning. Add the chicken and sun dried tomatoes. Let cook under low/medium heat for 3 minutes. Add the broccoli (already steamed in the microwave) and butter. Let that go until the pasta is cooked to your liking (You want to add the broccoli about 2-3 minutes before taking it off the heat to avoid burning). Squeeze the lemon on top - you're done.

The moral of this story: Almost any leftover protein can be chopped up (even fried buffalo chicken strips) can be combined with a nearby vegetable (spinach, peas, asparagus, zucchini, carrots) to create an easy and yummy pasta. Ugh, now that I've eaten, time to get back on the VPN.

Don-

Harmless Harvest has made me a coconut water snob

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:43:00 +0000


Coconut courtesy of the good peeps at Ritz Carlton, San Thomas US-VI

I consider myself to be somewhat of a coconut connoisseur. Anything that smells or tastes like coconut gets my attention. Much of the experimental cooking during my formative late teens/early twenties consisted of three primary components; heat, onions, and coconut.

For years I've been drinking the canned coconut water with the chunks of pulp that can be found in almost any Mexican super mercado and many taquerias. It's very sweet and the can is virtually indestructible, which lends to the tinny, metallic taste. And then there's the frozen coconut water with pulp slices that come in a bag. These can be found in the frozen food section of your local Asian super market - and you can usually order it in Vietnamese restaurants - primarily pho houses. For me, the frozen bags of coconut water were the next best thing to popping off the top of a fresh baby coconut.

Needless to say, I was genuinely stoked when the whole coconut water craze kicked into high gear over the past few years, thanks to broad exposure via Dr. Oz, and others. In the months running up to our wedding last May, Kristi had instituted an all organic, low carb death march diet. Luckily, she started bringing home different types of coconut water. We drank O.N.E., which tasted great and was competitively priced with the other big brands in the coconut water wars. After a few months, we switched to Zico because it had a higher electrolyte level. Zico lacked the flavor of O.N.E.. In my opinion, Zico tastes a bit, off.

Harmless Harvest: It can harm your wallet
It was sometime in late June when Kristi brought home a case of Harmless Harvest coconut water. I was not immediately impressed. The bottles were small (8 oz), the labeling was hokey at best, and worst of all, Kristi had spent over $30 for 12 bottles. What the hell was running through her mind?

Then I opened a bottle. Easily the best tasting coconut water on the market, hands down. The stuff tastes pretty much exactly like it does straight from the coconut. This is because Harmless Harvest, unlike the other products out there, is bottled raw. The coconut water goes through some sort of cold high pressure process that allows for storage without having to pasteurize the product. Apparently, this prevents the loss of nutrients.

PROS

5 cases of 8 oz bottles = no shelf space

Superior taste to other coconut water brands (Zico, Vita Coco, O.N.E., Naked)
Great source of potassium, electrolytes, fiber
Better than sports energy drinks
Supposedly sustainable

CONS

Pricey: A 16 oz bottle of Harmless Harvest coconut water costs $4.49, while a 33.8 oz bottle of Zico sells for about the same price
Short shelf life: Since this product is raw, it lasts about as long as a carton of milk - and it must remain refrigerated before and after opening
Limited supply: We've only seen this Harmless Harvest at health food stores such as Whole Foods, New Leaf and Sprouts. And even then, they're often out of stock

At the end of the day, I eventually became accustomed to spending more on a coconut water that provides me with an authentic taste, and I can't really consider going back to the other coconut waters available today. @HarmlessHarvest, if I can't afford to send my kids to college, please know that it's your fault - and my pleasure.

Don-

Let dinner cook itself while you're at work

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 05:55:00 +0000

I love feeling smart. A busy lifestyle makes it difficult to actually make a dinner you want to eat. But with a little pre-planning, dinner can cook itself while you spend your day in meetings, con-calls and glazing over road maps & spreadsheets. It's called throwing everything into a slow cooker when you leave in the morning and come home to a dinner that's already cooked! Yesterday we slow cooked rosemary garlic chicken. Damn, it was good.

Don's been in Pragmatic Marketing training all week, and I've been swamped at work myself. The idea of cooking up something from scratch when I got home was about as appealing as watching a season of Honey Boo Boo.

Roasted garlic rosemary chicken - easy Real Food recipe

This is a fairly easy paleo diet dish and its easy it is to make:

Ingredients
8 cloves garlic, sliced
5-6 sprigs fresh rosemary, separated from the stem
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Tbsp white wine (don't use anything old)
2 Tbsp water
2 lbs skinless, boneless organic chicken breasts
cooking spray (coconut oil preferred)

Directions
Spray slow cooker with the cooking spray. Mix all ingredients except the chicken in the slow cooker. Mix well. Add the chicken one piece at a time, making sure to turn each piece to cover. Cook on low for eight hours or high for four hours. Makes approximately 8 servings of 4 oz each. I usually prep and turn it on before I go to work and it is ready when I get home.

Add blanched carrots or broccoli, rubbed in olive oil and grilled for a few minutes on each side and viola, you've got yourself an easy, delicious meal. BONUS: this meal will avoids the whole "grocery bill too high" syndrome.

Healthy recipes are easier, and tastier than you think.
You can modify the recipe to your tastes and lifestyle. You can replace the protein with pork tenderloin of a beef brisket. What? you don't like garlic? Use shallots. Swap out rosemary with thyme. Its your dinner and we want you to experiment to find the flavors that work for you and your family. A recipe is simply a guideline, you make it what you want. But one rule to adhere to: cooking with healthy recipes are easy to do, once you make it a routine. And dammit, enjoy yourself - and have a glass of wine.

Silicon Valley phenomenon, or are you living in a blur too?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 03:49:00 +0000

It doesn't stop.

I'm not sure if anyone who doesn't live and work in tech in Silicon Valley can appreciate how the pace, even at a large company, does not slow. Having worked at start-ups during the dot-com boom, I don't miss the days of staying in the office till 9 or 10pm, but this is a different kind of pressure.

You can't unplug.

I wake up at 4:30am everyday to check my work email. Did something happen in EMEA overnight that I need to address? If the answer is no, I go back to sleep. About half the day is spent in meetings and after an hour commute (10 mile drive down the 101), I come home to walk the dogs, whip up something to eat, and then I'm back online. Yeah, I know. It sounds like any normal adult life - try adding kids into the mix, you might say. And to those with kids, I have no idea how you do it.

In the valley, we never, ever unplug. There's an unsaid expectation to be available, to reply to emails immediately, regardless of the time. In fact, I'm sitting here at the dining table watching Kristi multitask in the kitchen: a chopping knife in one hand and her iPhone in the other.

Enough sounding like a brat: We are lucky though. We're having roasted rosemary garlic chicken with sauteed yellow wax beans (which are way tastier than green beans), and couscous. Kristi is in Napa this weekend, the weather is good, albeit cold, and I'm not worried about bills.

There's certainly a price you pay for living in a center of innovation, but the key is striking that balance where you can unplug. And that's what we're working on.

In the meantime, here's dinner...thank you Cuisinart slow cooker, and thank you Olive Press!

Make real food granola at home

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 02:29:00 +0000

Alright, so let me start with this: I love granola. All time favorite cereals (besides Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries) is granola.

Since Kristi discovered the Real Food blog earlier this year, we've taken some of the spirit of the concept and adapted many of their recipes to suit our personal tastes.

This recipe is based on Alton Brown's recipe for granola, but with the Real Foods influence. The result is a sweet, healthy and delicious granola that serves as a breakfast cereal or a snack.

We usually double the recipe; it keeps for a while in airtight jars. If you want to stay 100% away from unnatural sugar use raisins, I have yet to find unsweetened cranberries. You can add some nutmeg in there if you like, some recipes also call for a little bit of powdered ginger. Once you make it, you can alter, add/omit ingredients it to your taste. Sometimes we will just use 1C honey or 1C syrup instead of both. I hope you like the recipe; it is awesome for breakfast in Greek yogurt or cereal! ☺

Ingredients

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup slivered raw organic almonds
• 1 cup raw organic pumpkin seeds
• 1 cup raw organic sunflower seeds
• ¾- 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1/4 cup raw organic honey
• 1/4 cup Grade A maple syrup
• 1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil (A good extra virgin oil makes a huge difference vs. regular coconut oil)
• 1- ½ teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons or so of cinnamon (Depends on your taste how much)
• 1 cup raisins or cranberries

Double the recipe, it's worth it.

Directions
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
Heat up coconut oil in small pan on low to melt it. Add the vanilla to the oil and set aside to cool a bit.
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except the oil mixture and cranberries/raisins.

Pour oil into the large bowl with ingredients and combine both mixtures well and pour onto sheet pan/s (I use two when I double the recipe). Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve an even color.

Remove from oven and add raisins or cranberries and mix until evenly distributed.

Oh, We Celebrated National Can It Forward Day Alright

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 06:33:00 +0000

Today my sisters Kelly and Tiphany, our friend Jen, and I celebrated National Can It Forward Day 2012 by going overboard in the kitchen.

We canned the following:
- Blushing Peach Jam (peach-rasberry)
- Peach-Strawberry Jam
- Vidalia Onion and Maple Conserve
- Texas Jalapeno Jelly
- Jalapeno Peach Jelly (Chevy's recipe)
- Peach Bellini Jam
- Pickled Jalapenos
- Cowboy Candy

More pictures and tips from our experience to come... What an awesome day spent canning little pieces of heaven.

Kristi-

Grilled coconut lime shrimp skewers...healthy and yum!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 04:51:00 +0000

From the grill of Kristi Pustka...

The thermometer hit 95 degrees today, so Summer is finally here. I think we're past the June Gloom.

I had a raging headache all day today, and Don, my boyfriend offered to handle dinner. I was in the mood for something light and colorful for dinner and Safeway was having a special on large shrimp. What's a girl to do? This dish turned out perfect. the coconut and lime juice served as a great base for the marinade. Habenero provided the heat, and the cilantro gave the dish a light earthy flavor.

Let's get right down to business here. This is what you'll need:

The Marinade
- Juice from 1 coconut
- Juice from 1 lime
- 1 handful of cilantro, chopped
- 2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 2-4 small spoonfuls of habenero salsa (can find it at your local Mexican supermercado) or 1/2 - habenero, chopped - Remember, this is hot stuff. Don and I love hot foods, you can always substitute with jalpenos or serrano chilis for less tongue scorching spice :)

The Skewers
- 1lb large shrimp, shelled and de-veined
- 1 Maui, Walla Walla, or other sweet onion, quartered
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 Red bell pepper
- 5 whole mushrooms
- 1/4 pineapple, chopped
Any other veggies you want to include on the skewer

Preparing the Marinade
The coconut is the only hard part of this whole dish, that is if you don't know how to extract the juice from the cavity. Here's a tip. The top of the coconut has 3 holes, kinda like a bowling ball. Use a phillips head screwdriver and a hammer and to gently tap the screwdriver into all three holes. Pour the coconut juice into a large zip-lock freezer bag. Add the rest of the marinade ingredients and set in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Chop up and prepare the veggies. Here's a super important tip. If you're using wooden skewers you'll want to soak then in water for at least a half hour before throwing them on the grill. This will prevent the skewers from catching on fire during cooking.

When adding ingredients to the skewer its always a good rule of thumb to make sure the first and last item you put on the skewer is either an onion or a pepper. These veggies won't fall apart on the grill making it difficult to flip over an remove.

Just Grill It
This should make about 8 skewers. I believe that you should make your own desision in regards to what order you assemble your kebabs. Throw the skewers on a preheated grill and cook on medium heat (about 400 degrees) for 8-10 minutes, rotating sides at least once. Thery're done when the shrimp meat is pinkish and opaque, and firm to the touch.

Oh my god this turned out so well! Be careful of making sure the shrimp are cooked all the way. If you pack the kebabs with a lot of ingredients, you may find yourself coming back out to the grill later with all the shrimop :) If that's the case, just let them sit on the grill for an additional 2-3 minutes. Sriracha (cock sauce) works as an excellent dipping sauce.

Given that my boyfriend cooked this, I'd have to say it's super delish. Our dog Bando certainly wanted to try it.

Now get out there and start grillin'!