Of cornbread and cookbooks, persimmons and pretty places

by Wanda on October 15, 2012

Would you believe my computer crashed some weeks ago and I lost my admin password? How about the dog ate my homework? No, really, I did lose my computer. Four words for you from my excruciating experience of losing two years’ worth of work and pictures: Exterior hard drive, baby. And in the words of the old song: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

You know how they talk about multi-tasking? I need to be able to live two 24 hours in one 24-hour period! Maybe for about a week.

Food adventures lately have including continuing work on O Cucina Portugueza, my Hawaii Portuguese cookbook, due to editor in two weeks. Been testing recipes at every turn. Last night, it was a marinated steak, herbed rice cakes, and pudim flan (an amazingly easy baked custard). That’s my broa, Portuguese yeasted cornmeal bread, above. Gulp!

Had dinner at Alan Wong’s Amasia in Wailea on Maui the other night — small plates only, lots of old Alan favorites plus much that’s newer, an absolutely gorgeous maze of dimly lit rooms in an Asian mode (former Kacho at the Grand Wailea), much laughter with three talented chefs and some good foodie friends. Prices are very reasonable ($11-20 a plate for most things, though the whole crab will give you serious sticker shock — but the flavors will perk up your tongue as much as the price wilts your wallet). As a small, picky eater, I found it PERFECT. Just watch yourself; it’s very easy to spend more than you want. The hard part is regretting it.

Toured a group of family farms on Maui and had lunch at O’o Farm in Kula, owned by James McDonald and partners: Visitors get a farm tour, a healthful and highly refined lunch and views that fill the eyes. I highly recommend this for an mid-day excursion if you’re going to Maui. It’s as close as you can get to visiting Napa without the long plane flight. It’s online. While you’re up there, visit Hashimoto Farm — it’s persimmon season and their Maru explain why these fruit are so prized in Japan. (These aren’t the prettiest fruit, but they’re the sweetest, finest textured ones.)

Looking forward to a week on Maui this week and some promised amazing sushi with my food guide friend, Bonnie Friedman of Tour da Maui; if you’ve got non-local friends, or haven’t been to the Isles in a while, her four-hour tours are so culturally rich and down-home local, nothing like most oh-we’ve-got-such-good-taste tours. Max four per tour; two or three is most comfortable. She’s online, too.

I’ve got some recipes for you. Wait until you taste the Portuguese walnut bars, the aforementioned marinated steak and rice steaks. If you think Portuguese food is all soup and malassadas…I got ideas for you!

Come back. I promise not to be gone so long next time.

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Mango stew among few summer adventures for this busy blogger

by Wanda on September 1, 2012

Mango in a stew? Delish! Just be sure to serve it hot.

Can a person hold down a part-time job, freelance for a half-dozen writing/editing clients, work on a cookbook, engage in volunteer projects aid their ailing mother and keep up a household AND a blog?

If that person is me, apparently not! It’s been such a busy summer with way too few food adventures to report and every time I think about blogging, it’s at the end of a long day of writing other things and I say tomorrow…which turns out to be almost three months ago!

I did have a little food fun: Helped coordinate the recipe contest at Mangoes at the Moana where I thought the most interesting recipe was one that didn’t even place. It’s called Summer Mango Pork and Potato Stew stew and if it had been possible for contestant Shayna Robertson to serve it hot, I think it really would have been a winnah! Even cold, you could taste the cinnamon and other spices she used to really come through. The sweet mango against the rich gravy was very interesting. Robertson, disappointed, talked to me after her and I encouraged her to keep working the idea.

Cinnamon, by the way is an ingredient I like to use in my own beef stew, though my daughter rolls her eyes and says “You can never do anything NORMAL!” Here’s the recipe.

And next time, I’ll tell you about my other bit of food fun amidst the chaos of freelance assignments and book deadlines: Making challah, the Jewish sabbath bread. It’s all in the braiding, baby!

Summer Mango Pork and Potato Stew

By Shayna Robertson

2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cubed

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons beef base (she likes Better than Bouillon and so do I)

2 teaspoons tomato paste

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 cup red wine

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juices

1 teaspoon dried sage

5 potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 ripe but firm mangoes, diced

Season the pork with the salt and pepper. In a stew pot or pressure cooker, warm 1 tablespoon olive oil. Working in batches, brown pork on all sides, about 8-10 minutes per batch. Transfer each batch to plate and reserve as you work.

Add the onion to the hot oil and sweat about 4 minutes (the onion, not you!). Add the garlic, beef base, tomato paste, cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, cloves and red pepper flakes. Cook about 1 minute. Add the wine, tomatoes with their juices and sage, and return the pork to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until pork is tender, about 45 minutes on a conventional range or 20 minutes in pressure cooker at high pressure.

When pork is tender, remove lid and allow stew to thicken at a boil, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook until the potatoes are fork-tenders, about 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the mangoes. Serve immediately over hot rice.

 

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Friendship and fresh pizza

by Wanda on June 27, 2012

My snack pizza: Cheese, herbs and NO nasty tomato sauce.

I love custom-made pizzas and I love my friend Elizabeth. I especially love it when the two are in the same room.

I owe a lot to Elizabeth, including a recipe for made-from-scratch pizza that I’ve been playing with.

But first, I just have to say a word or two about her. Elizabeth gave me work when I needed it badly. She is the Mac maven and solves my computer mysteries. She shares delicious recipes, including her family’s top-secret French dressing (I am honor-bound never to put this delicious, tomato-based sauce/marinade in a cookbook or share it with anyone else!).  She lets me come hang out in her cozy apartment when I need respite from my crazy-busy life. She introduces me to great movies (the other night, she could not WAIT to turn me on to a newish British TV series based on the Sherlock Holmes novels; delicious!, you must Netflix it). We have riotous fun playing Song Burst and Trivial Pursuit (even if she is scarily smart and pretty much always beats me).

Bottom line: She loves her friends just the way they are, and when you find someone like that, hang on to them!

Elizabeth enjoys pizza, but we both find commercial pizzas too large and too expensive. And, like me, she prefers to create her own toppings. I absolutely loath stewed-to-death red sauce and tasteless cheese! The answer is to make your own; Elizabeth’s recipe is a lot simpler and less fussy than those you find in hardcore “artisanal” baking books. (If you just aren’t willing to do this, be aware that Safeway now carries plastic bags full of puffy, bubbly fresh pizza dough, ready made, for just a few bucks.)

Through trial and error, we’ve learned that the best approach is to prebake these personal-size pizzas just until golden, puffy and set. Then you can top the pizza and bake it to finish. (If you top the raw dough, you’ll have to overcook the topping to be sure the dough is fully baked.)

The other morning, I made a pizza for my morning “elevenses” and—wouldn’t you know it?—left it at home when I took off in a rush for work.

Pizza alla Bricks (Bricks is Elizabeth’s nickname; it’s a long story)

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 package active dry yeast (NOT instant)
1-2 tablespoons sugar
Scant 1 cup hot-from-the-tap water
2-3 teaspoons olive oil, and a bit more for shaping

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the plastic blade, mix together flour and salt. In a cup, mix together yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup hot water and allow to “bloom” (2 minutes). Drizzle yeast mixture and olive oil into food processor; process, gradually adding remaining water, until a ball forms, then 2-3 minutes longer. Oil a large mixing bowl, place dough in bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk (or place in oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise in refrigerator overnight).

Punch down. Divide into three even pieces and, with oiled hands, form into balls. Package the balls individually in plastic wrap or a zippered plastic bag and refrigerate or freeze them for later use (defrost in refrigerator, still wrapped). Or shape the dough (below), prebake it; cool and refrigerate the prebaked rounds.

To shape: On a lightly floured board, with oiled hands, spread and push a ball of dough into a flat circle. (Elizabeth uses a rolling pin; I like to hand-shape them in rustic style.) Preheat a pizza stone or baking sheet at 450-500 degrees for 15 minutes or so. Drizzle with cornmeal. To transfer, place round of dough on pizza peel or sheet of cardboard sprinkled with cornmeal. Drizzle or brush lightly with olive oil, if desired. Push round onto hot stone or baking sheet. Bake at 450-400 degrees 7-10 minutes.

Remove dough; cool and refrigerate or cover with topping and complete baking for a few minutes—enough to melt cheese and heat the ingredients through.

Elizabeth and I often have dinner with another friend, Annett, who introduced us to tuna-and-onion pizza (drained, canned tuna; thin-sliced onion crescents; sliced mozzarella or other cheese). I love white pizza so I made a version with bechamel and mozzarella.
White veggie/tuna pizza: Make a thin white sauce (1 tablespoon each butter and flour, 1 cup of room-temperature milk or stock). Add 1 can drained tuna and half a bunch baby spinach. Stir in sliced mushrooms, if desired. Spread on prebaked pizza. Scatter grated mozzarella or jack cheese over. Bake at 450-500 degrees about 5 minutes.

But my favorite is simple olive oil, chopped fresh basil, sliced tomatoes and mounds of soft goat cheese. Or arrange marinated artichokes on top, pour some marinade over, then dot with tomatoes and goat cheese.

 

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And the cookbook most likely to sit unsold is…

by Wanda on June 24, 2012

Read on and you'll find out about this mango cheesecake!

At the Friends of the Library Book Sale, where I’ve been helping with food for the hard-working volunteers, I made a careful reconnaissance of the cookbook area before we opened on Friday, and then another today.

I had two objectives: To see if anybody bought the first two copies of my first cookbook ever to appear at the book sale (the book is 7 years old) and to see which cookbooks should be nominated for Cookbook We are SOOOOO Over.

My cookbooks sold the first day. (Mixed feelings; no author wants to see their book in a second-hand pile but at least it went for a good cause.)

And the authors whose books qualify for my oh-so-unscientific poll are: Jeff Smith and Rosey Daley.

Smith, once among the hottest cooking show hosts on TV (pre-Food Channel days), fell from grace in a big way. (That’s kind of inside joke; he was actually a pastor who began as a cooking hobbiest.) But he blotted his copybook big-time by … well, it’s an ugly story. Let’s not tell it. More to the point, he began turning out cookbooks like a grillman at a pancake house and that always makes me suspicious. Nobody has that many really good cookbooks in them (she said, as she went to work on her fifth book). Although I knew him a bit in Seattle (he lived in Tacoma, Wash.), and found him charming in a bombastic kind of way, I don’t remember falling in love with any of his recipes. And, apparently, neither did a lot of other people. Because you can find his whole opus for like 50 cents apiece at the sale.

Rosey Daley gained fame by helping Oprah to lose a bunch of weight as her in-house chef and received a HUGE boost in sales from the Oprah-nator. But we’ve had boxfuls of the book to sell the last couple of years; can’t hardly give ‘em away. Probably too narrow an idea. Or maybe the fact that Oprah has regained a good bit of that weight plays into it.

Anyway, I won’t be losing any weight tonight. A friend who lost the bet we made two weeks ago on the Pacquiao-Barclay fight is cooking us dinner right now: New Zealand sea bass, pasta, salad … and I made a mango cheesecake that has me puffed up with pride. We’ll see how good it is. If it passes the taste test, I’ll share the shamefully simple recipe.

It passed! This isn’t a true, from-scratch cheesecake but it is baked, it is creamy and rich and the mango shines through. I was particularly proud of one aspect: In the morning, I realized I had a) a bowl of ripe mangoes, and b) about a dozen oatmeal-coconut cookies I had baked a week before that were rock-hard but still delicious. I thought pie and crust. Then I thought cheesecake and crust. Then I searched the Internet, recalling a simple cheesecake a friend made using Eagle Brand Condensed Milk (one of few products that hasn’t changed a bit since my childhood). Here’s what I did:

Crust: One dozen crunchy cookies (oatmeal-coconut; find it in my first book as New England Oatmeal Cookies) and 2 tablespoons butter. Pulverize the cookies in a food processor, add the pats of butter, process to moist crumbs. You need an 8- to 10-inch springform pan (8 would be best but I’ve lost the bottom to my 8-inch pan, so went with 9, making a rather shallow pie). Press into a butter-sprayed springform pan.

Filling: 1 can Eagle Brand Condensed Milk, 8 ounces cream cheese, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup lemon juice. Blend all.

Mango puree: Puree the flesh of 3 large or 4 smaller mangoes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake the crust 10 minutes. Remove. Pour half the filling into the crust. Spoon a few tablespoons full of mango puree on top, in discreet circles. Use a chopstick to draw through the mango to spread and swirl it through. Pour over remaining filling and repeat with remaining mango to create attractive top. Bake at 325 degrees 55 minutes to 1 hour, until a knife in the center emerges clean. Place on rack to cool; allow sides to pull away from springform, run a thin-bladed knife around to release any adhesions. Release lock on spring form sides and remove. Refrigerate cheesecake, covered, until a few minutes before serving time.

Be happy.

You can make this with any precious lilikoi juice you might have in the freezer or any fresh or canned or frozen fruit puree. Or use lime juice and the rind of 1-2 limes and make a lime cheesecake.

 

PS: Booksale goes on until Sunday with books at greatly reduced prices the last three days. Still some treasures in cookbook section though most local cookbooks gone. Many, many, many, many novels and not everything has been put out yet. All shelves to be refreshed except the most fast-sellling. Records and CDs and DVDs, too. At McKinley High School. see friendsofthelibraryhawaii.org

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Nihon no Yoru (Night in Japan)

June 9, 2012

I wish I could show you the meal I made tonight when my husband’s new BFF and his wife came to dinner. But, well, we did it again: ate before shooting. Ex cept for one dish, the onigiri (musubi rice balls) above. For some reason—I rarely cook Asian food—I went in a Japanese direction: edamame [...]

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Another few words about chico…and pictures!

June 7, 2012

Husband has rescued one of the two pots that got chewing gummed in the previous blog about using chico fruit. I found the chico pix and am mounting  a couple so you can see it. Since the latex release didn’t happen when I used the fresh fruit, only fruit that had been in the fridge [...]

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Not just for chewing gum anymore

June 4, 2012

Somehow, I’ve been roped into doing a cooking demo at Whole Foods Kailua in August (date pending) featuring tropical fruit. My good friend Ken Love is in charge of a project to encourage grocery stores to stock some of the more exotic tropical fruit that’s now being grown, but left largely unused, on the various [...]

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You don’t know bananas about it

June 1, 2012

God was thinking the day He made the banana. To me, it’s the perfect fruit: no seed, peeling is easy, you don’t even need a knife, they’re sweet without being cloying and you can find them everywhere. You ever met anyone who objects to banana? I lost my mind the other night at the Hawaii [...]

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Wahoo and Palm: The return of the can

May 25, 2012

Canned goods have never played much of a place in my pantry since I began a love affair with  “gourmet cooking,”  in the ’70s. “Exotics,” yes — sardines, smoked oysters, Red Devil liver paste, water chestnuts until I discovered fresh ones in Seattle’s International District —but I would  no more have served a canned protein, [...]

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When live gives you lemons, make shogayaki

May 22, 2012

When life gives you lemons, throw ‘em at somebody. That’s kinda how I’m feeling right now. Or maybe, when life gives you lemons, let somebody else make you lemonade. And serve it to you. So cold it’s sweating. Preferably alongside the pool at a Four Seasons or a Ritz Carlton. While you lounge and a [...]

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