Happy poodle at the dog park

Sophie loves to fetch!

(Hmm. I was hoping I could upload video from my cellphone directly to Blogger, but apparently I can't. Stand by while I get it onto YouTube. There. Done.)

Playing hookey

I'm supposed to be cooking or mowing the lawn. But Barb tempted me with a visit the dog park instead.

Come to Mama!

They WERE in the old oven!

Damn damn damn

I went to pull out my Le Creuset dutch oven to make some soup. I can't find it, nor the Le Creuset terrine. The last place I remember seeing them was in the oven at my old house, where I usually stored them. The new owners have my number; I would think they would have called, but maybe they just thought finders keepers? I don't remember looking inside the oven when I'd cleaned the place out. They're definitely not inside the new house. They might be in the garage, but not anywhere obvious. I don't remember moving them.

I left a message for the new owners.

I feel sick.

Strawberry balsamic frozen yoghurt:The Money Shot

As promised in my last post. I don't have an ice cream scoop (another gadget for the list), but a melon baller worked nicely, especially when serving dessert in a champagne glass. The little spoon is from my East Bay Restaurant Supply haul. The Waterford glass and Havilland dish are from my great-grandmother's house; I have eight of the glasses and the entire set of dishes: 12 place settings of dinner plates, salad plates, saucers, bowls and serving dishes, all transported box-by-box as carry-ons every time I go home or Mom visits. I think there's maybe two boxes left. Awesome.

I kicked myself for not saving out a strawberry for garnish, but raspberries and mint from my yard are good stand-ins, and the raspberries provided a nice flavor contrast to the strawberry. Yes, I ate this as soon I was done shooting it. Very tasty! I think I will cut down on the sugar next time – the berries were plenty sweet to start with – and maybe up the balsamic; I couldn't really taste it.

Chillin' on a rainy day:Strawberry balsamic frozen yoghurt

It's 59 degrees and raining, so what am I doing? Making strawberry frozen yoghurt! You'd think I would have decided to get the frozen dessert bug earlier in the summer when it was in the 90s every friggin' day, but no.

Two things pushed me: the strawberry balsamic ice cream I had in San Francisco last week was so delectable, and then I happened to get a copy of David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop." It's been praised twice by Sam over at Becks & Posh (here and here). No figs at Safeway, but some pretty good-looking strawberries, cheap. If you don't have "The Perfect Scoop," David Lebovitz has posted the recipe here.

(I'll check Whole Paycheck Foods later this week for figs -- a couple years ago I found some there at $1 for a whole basket on the verge of going bad. I ate them all quickly to save them from such a sad fate, and felt virtuous.)
I was going to make ice cream, but the simplicity of the frozen yoghurt recipe appealed to me. Strawberries, sugar, yoghurt, lemon juice, and vodka or kirsch. The alcohol is optional, but a little splash of it helps keep the yoghurt from freezing too hard. I had no kirsch on hand, but vodka? Of course!
The recipe says to remove the stems and hull the strawberries. "Hull"? To me, that means "remove the skin or shell" (the hull), but I guessed that here it means "remove the hard white center part that doesn't taste like much."

If I'm wrong, let me know.

Trying to take this shot while balancing the camera on top of the yoghurt container (plus all the times I've had to brace the camera on something in low light for long exposures) has pushed me over the edge from "I should get a tripod" to "I'm going to the camera store today." I want a Gorillapod, so if the store doesn't have it, I'll order one from Amazon.
The strawberries macerate (are macerated?) for an hour on the counter and stirred occasionally. "Macerate" is a strange word; it feels like it should mean something active, like mashing, masticating or masturb ... er, something else. But it's just soaking/steeping. I should look up the etymology. Maybe later.

Then the strawberries go in the blender with the yoghurt and lemon juice. But I was thinking, OK, lemon's acidic, balsamic vinegar is acidic. Why not fig balsamic? So in that went. Into my classic Waring blender, bought for $5 at a rummage sale 20 years ago. Not bad!
I don't like strawberry seeds in my ice cream, so out came the chinois Mom brought back from France years ago. Thanks, Mom! I've now added one of those wooden pokey/mashy things to my mental wishlist of kitchen gadgets. In the meantime, a spatula works OK. Smoooooooth!

Then out came another gadget courtesy of Mom: the Donvier ice cream maker. Thanks, Mom! No salt, no ice, no electricity, no kidding.

It really is magic. You pour your ice cream mix in, turn the paddle a few times, then again every few minutes. Voilà, frozen treat.
The result was delicious, at least the little taste I got. I had to quick pack it in tupperware and toss it in the freezer; as usual, I pushed food prep right up until I had to go to work, with no time to enjoy what I'd made. But that's OK; it's waiting for me when I get home.

Next post: the money shot.

P.S. But for the sake of completeness after the fact, I'll post it here, too. Turned out great! Had to use raspberries with mint leaves for garnish since I forgot to save out a strawberry. I think I would use a little more balsamic next time, too. I used a melon baller to scoop and served in a champagne glass. This is super-delicious!

Steak encore

When I fix a honkin' big steak, I'm tempted to eat it all, but thoughts of a luscious sandwich the next day save me from overeating.

Some asiago cheese bread from the farmers market, slathered with garlic herb butter and toasted under the broiler. A big wodge of arugula, also from the farmers market. A light slather of mayo one side of the bread, and lots of steak sliced thin. With a thicker loaf of bread, it helps to scoop out some of the soft middle, which creates a kind of pocket so you can get lots of filling in there and not have an overly bready sandwich that's too big for your mouth.

I'm feeling hungry again just looking at it. I may be making more steak sooner than I thought.

Neglected

Poor Lannie. Always waiting patiently in the wings while Leo hogs the spotlight. He's such a clown. While he barks and jumps around and forcibly inserts himself into your field of attention, Lannie will stand back until he's distracted, then creep over and rest her forehead against your knee. "Pet me? Maybe? If you're busy, that's OK. I'll just wait."

So Leo hogs the blog with his antics. Let's give Lannie the attention she deserves, shall we? Good Lannie. Good girl.

Are you done yet?

Can I clean your bowl?

Steak à la Steamywith fennel apple salad

A couple of weeks ago, Jaden of Jaden's Steamy Kitchen posted her method of turning cheap steaks into tender and tasty. I decided to give it a try with a $5 New York strip from Safeway.

You salt your steak liberally, some would say insanely, and let it sit for an hour. (Use kosher or sea salt, not iodized.) Then you rinse off the salt, pat the steak very dry (important!) and grill it. The salt tenderizes the meat, but supposedly will not overwhelm the flavor of the meat.While the steak was sitting, I made fennel apple salad by slicing half a fennel bulb and a granny smith paper-thin on the mandoline. I tossed the apple slices with a little diluted lemon juice and patted them dry, then mixed them with the fennel, along with the zest of a lemon, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of salt, fresh pepper and some chopped fennel fronds.

I also made Jaden's garlic herb butter to top the steak by mixing together crushed garlic, chopped parsley and softened butter, then molding the butter into a log and refrigerating it.

	Here's the steak and salad! Both yummmy. The meat was tender and flavorful. I would say it verged on too salty, but just barely. I used about a teaspoon of salt per side, so I would scale that back next time.

Sophie says, "I can has steak?"

Wifi at Safeway?

Wow, everyone's got it! I was thinking, why? But they do have a little Starbucks cafe there, and I suppose if you were shopping with your laptop handy, you could look up ingredients for a recipe.

From little acorns ...

Every year around the holidays you'll see these little potted Norfolk pines in abundance in stores, ready to be decorated as miniature Christmas trees. Someone I know gets one every year for his desk. After Christmas, he tries to keep it alive as long as possible, but invariably it starts to dry out and shrivel up.

But if you do have a green thumb, as one friend does, and live in a friendlier climate, here's what can happen to that little potted tree:
It's about 12 feet tall! My friend wants to plant it in the ground one of these days, saying, "It deserves that," but I worry that it's the pot and the location that the tree loves. On the other hand, it's close to the point where it can never be moved again, even in the pot, it's getting so big. So it's a gamble either way.

Poodle in translation

Park!

PARK!

PARRRRK!

Take us to the park NOW!
Oy, all right, already!
How's the water, Leo?

The water's fine!

Sophie was perkier today. It helped that it was only about 60 degrees out, and we took a day off from walking yesterday.

Happy dog!

He's fine. Really.

Bonus pic from Photobooth:

East Bay Restaurant Supply

I noticed the sign for East Bay Restaurant Supply in Oakland while riding the bus last Friday. Then it came up at dinner that night, so we had to make a visit on Saturday.

Since I was traveling, I could only lust after the stockpots big enough to make ox soup and the shiny cooktops and reach-ins. Even the whisks and potato mashers were available in Andre the Giant size.

I comforted my yearning with just a few things I could fit in my carry-on. A dozen little coffee spoons and wee forks, a serving spoon and a dough scraper. Shiny!