A South African meal, with a Botswanan show.

*The photo-uploader is currently not working so pictures will be coming eventually.*

My very good friend and former roommate Brittany just got back from serving a mission in Johannesburg,South Africa and has happily moved back to Utah, well I'm happy she's back, I don't really know how she feels about it, but we'll assume, for good measure.

Anyway, She wanted to make a typical South African meal for all of us old roommies that used to live together in the Green House, and Melanie. Sadly, I missed all the prep because I was stuck at my high school's graduation (as in the one I teach at), so I can't say too much about that, which is really unfortunate.

The staple food is a thick corn meal paste, kinda like polenta, only not quite as thick, called pap (prounounced pop, I'm sorry I can't do the IPA symbols, my brain is too tired for that at the moment). With that we had beans and sausage in a sauce, which Brittany keeps saying there isn't actually a name for since it's different every time you make it depending on what you have around. She calls it garbage sauce, much like when I make fridge soup with whatever vegetables I need to use up. On the side we had mustard greens, in place of rape* greens, since those are hard to find here in the United States, probably because of the name.

According to Brittany Africans have a distinct lack of silverware, so we all ate with our hands to enhance our dining experience. First, Brittany presented a large bowl of hot water and using a cup poured some over each diner's hands before we began. After all, who want to eat with dirty hands if you don't have any silverware.

It's interesting to note there is a polar opposite of this eating culture, China. They find it incredibly dirty to touch any food at all with their hands when eating, and will even eat hamburgers and fries with chopsticks. Then there are the myriad of cultures who range in between, like ours that switch between using utensils and picking food up. I'm inspired to do a study of food borne illness among cultures and see if there is a correlation, or if we're all just germ-o-phobes for nothing.

To actually eat the meal one takes a small amount of the pap in one hand and forms it into a small ball and using it as sort of a scoop for the other parts of the meal. The pap is sticky enough that it makes a good base for scooping and absorbs the sauce. Actually getting into your mouth, however, is a little more tricky since in order for the scoop to be effective, I found it had to be slightly more than I could politely fit into my mouth, but if you tried to bite the scoop instead of just eating the whole thing, it would completely fall apart. Brittany likened it to Sushi that way. You really have to stick the whole thing in your mouth all at once.

The meal itself was very tasty. The beans and sausage had ample spices and a hint of curry. The pap is pretty bland by itself, but the sauce was potent enough that they balanced each other nicely. The greens were also very good, but I'm a sucker for greens, and therefor may not be able to be trusted. I really enjoyed all the flavors, and am very disappointed I missed all the prep, so I'll have to bug Brittany for instructions on how to recreate the meal. To drink we had orangeade, since, according to Brittany, they're always drinking something orange flavored.

I was a little surprised how much Brittany served us since the food was very heavy and quite filling. Not surprising considering the heavy starch and carbohydrate content, not to mention the protein. She ate about twice as much as the rest of us and told us that the Africans would serve even more than that, but she was used to it. Amazing.

The only unpleasantness of the meal was that the starch of the pap would dry on my fingers between bites, especially at the end when we were struggling to finish, and leave a crusty sticky feeling, which Emily delighted in smearing all over my arm. No, we aren't actually in Junior high, not that you'd be able to tell. Em had just come from a wedding so was less hungry than the rest of us or something, and decided to make a pap man with the leftovers.

Speaking of leftovers, the bean/sausage stuff kept fairly well in the refrigerator and made several tasty lunches and breakfasts, but we had no more pap, so we tried it on rolls, whole wheat bread, alone, and found that without the pap it's a little too intense, but will keep you from getting hungry for a good long while. Perfect before a hike or something, except that curry flavored beans and sausage for breakfast is a little much.

We also watched an episode of Lady's Detective Agency while we were eating since it's a very popular show in Botswana, where Brittany spent much of her mission. It's about two women who run a detective agency and solve mysteries. Kind of a fun show.

Thus ends my South African experience, though I'd love to experience the real thing at some point, since I've wanted to go there ever since I was little. Someday, someday.




*The seeds of which being what Canola oil is made from, so the plant is not wholly unknown to us American's it's just not used by us to its full potential, just like beet greens. Honestly, when will we learn that there's more to greens than iceberg lettuce?

Cacophonous Crudités

So I'm home sick of, ironically, food poisoning (most likely, you can never really know for sure, but the symptoms are all there, and statistically speaking there are way way more cases of food poisoning than actual stomach flu) So, I'm poking around on youtube, and I found this:



I love this, it combines two of my loves, Jazz and Food! Does it get any better?

Actually, this isn't the first video I've seen where people take vegetables and turn them musical, here's one of a whole vegetable orchestra:



These guys sound pretty good, though I imagine the whole tuning thing is a bit tricky.


And now for my favorite veggie, Broccoli, not to mention I find this guy inexplicably adorable.



And now for something completely different.



Yeah, I know, there's no food in this one, but I love bagpipes, and I bet that's a food service quality latex glove he's using...anyway, just go with it.

It's a great week for Bacon Science

This was sent to me by my good friend Scott, and it made me laugh, so here you go.

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=102992901

Oh the cuteness!

As I was reading my favorite blog today, Cakewrecks, I happened upon a link to the blog of a 16-year-old who is really talented in the field of cake decorating, and fell in love with her little robot cup cakes. It's not the first post on the page, so click the link and scroll down. I didn't want to steal her pic and post it though, so here's the link:

http://mmmeliacakes.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

Allergy thy name be Banana.

So, for any of you who are allergic to a food that you like, this post is for you.

Today in Foods we started our pie unit, and as such it was my obligation, and pleasure, to offer a demo on how to make a pie crust. Since we had plenty of pies for the kids to devour at the end of class (which they did; I love teenage boys for that reason, they always appreciate and subsequently get rid of whatever you make) I got to take two empty pie crusts home.

As I was pondering what to do with said pie crusts the thought of banana cream kept filling my head, which is odd for two reasons.

1. I don't like cream pies
2. I'm allergic to bananas

Now, my banana allergy is really very un-severe which I find very fortunate and am grateful for. I can eat them as long as they're covered with enough flour, fat, or sugar that my stomach doesn't notice they're in there, and they really only make me slightly ill, and only if they're spotty. So the trick, I guess, is to get green ones and hide them well.

But I just couldn't shake it, so I went to Harmons to get bananas. They had strawberries on special, and I being the impulse buy-er I am thought that sounded like a good combo. So I decided to try it. I had a great debate in the pudding isle, but decided to shun the evils of instant and even cook 'n' serve. Sorry Jello, but box-pudding can never compete with home-made. Which is pretty much true of anything, really.

The recipe I found in my ancient (or I suppose Vintage is a better term) Better Homes and Gardens tome told me I should use 3 egg yolks in the pudding for the filling, and use the whites for merengue on top. The last time I've bothered with a merengue was in junior high, so I thought I'd give it a go. If only I had a kitchen torch. *sigh*

My roommate's fiancee came over during the course of the evening and had to comment. We sort of have this running gag that when he comes over I'm always making the house smell good. Yup, apparently my calling in life is to make people hungry.

Anyway, I thought it turned out quite nicely:


Although it needs more color. Maybe I should get one of those cool ceramic pans that have the pretty blue or green or whatever color glaze. I actually have a theory that the crust would bake slightly differently since everything bakes better in ceramic, right?

I was a little worried that since I had to re-bake the thing with the fruit inside that some of the moisture from the fruit would seep out into the pudding or crust causing it to do the whole syneresis thing (when the starch releases the trapped water and you get the clumpy pudding with the water in the bottom of the pan after a day or two) prematurely, but we'll have to see about that tomorrow. There was some excess moisture from the strawberries on the top, but it seems to be ok.

See, you can kinda see the little tiny puddle in the crust there. I hope it doesn't get too soggy by morning.

So, speaking of food allergies, I meant to post this photo a while ago, since I found it tragically amusing.


So the story goes, part of my family and I were at one of our favorite restaurants of all time, Maddox. We've been eating there since the dawn of time, and I think hamburgers are just about my brother's favorite thing in the universe. Ever since he was little. And Maddox hamburgers are the best of the best, heck they have the cows right out back (you think I'm joking? I'm not.) So for the first time in years we go to Maddox and he, of course, orders a hamburger.

Now, in the past few years the poor guy has developed an allergy to Sesame seads, and any kind of nut under the sun (which has some poetic justice since he used to torment me about not liking walnuts and them always being in Mom's cookies). So, he goes to do something that's so second nature to him, and is greated with the perfect hamburger on a fluffy sesame seed bun of certain doom. Tragedy has struck.

Here's the face of realization:

Well we solved the problem by switching the bun on the hamburger with the bun from my neice's hamburger since the kid's sized ones were sans sesame, which is why the burger in the picture is so disproportioned.

I suppose the point of all this is to say that, my heart goes out to all who can't eat the foods they love because they're body disagrees with their tastebuds...and maybe to show off my pretty pie.
Now I'm going to go take some benedryl and have a slice.

Look at me!

So, once again I have failed to write something interesting about a restaurant or bakery or anything of the sort, and am now going to toot my own horn at you all, but I'll bet some of you will read this anyway, because now you're probably curious...ha. Or maybe I'm just a little tipsy off the Swedish 'non-alcoholic' cider* and rum flavoring I was using earlier.

ANYWAY...so last week was my niece's birthday and this particular niece wants to be a chocolatier when she grows up, which as the foodie I am (even though I sort of hate that term) I think that's pretty darn awesome. Especially since she just turned 7. So I like to encourage this behavior in her, and one day I was walking through IKEA, buying the 'non-alcoholic' pear cider that my brother likes and that is now making my stomach a little queasy...or maybe that was the week old quiche...nevermind...and I saw their little interestingly shaped silicone ice-cube trays. They have these cute little flower shaped ones, and I said to myself--chocolate mold. The thought also occured to me that my good friend and former roommate Heidi would use edible glitter stuff on her chocolate creations, and I thought the combination of all these elements (minus the cider) would make a really great birthday present.

So I got the chocolate mold ice cube tray, one for her and one for me, the cider, and some sort of breakfast cereal that's package was announcing rather dramatically that it was good for me, and headed off.

Later I went to Orson Gygi's culinary supply shop for the first time, and I was totally blown away by how big it is, and how much I want at least one of everything in it. I got edible shimmery airbrush paint and little Wilton paint brushes, dipping chocolate, and lots of other things both for her and me (does this make me a spoiled brat?) and ended up spending WAY too much.


The sad part of that was not how much I spent but that somehow I managed to pick out the waxy nasty chocolate they make those little foil wrapped Easter candies from. Blech. I went back and got some Ghiridelli chocolate though, so hopefully that will be better, and I can use the waxy stuff to practice on, and put lots of flavoring in, which is what I did tonight.

I decided to paint dipping chocolate into the flowers and fill the centers with truffle filling--mint and raspberry--and make chocolate dessert cups by painting the chocolate into little silicone mini-muffin cups. While I tempered the dipping chocolate, which if you've never attempted is a royal pain in the head, I made the truffle centers, which is kind of like making ganache, and put the flavorings in. They won't be ready until tomorrow, so I used the dipping chocolate I attempted to temper, which sort of failed, to fill the flower molds for solid chocolates. I flavored them with left-over rum flavor oil from some cake of the past, but I really over did it with the whole bottle. I also put in a good amount of cinnamon to cut the rum flavor, and ended up with kind of a cool flavor combination.

The part is that I got to paint them.
And here's how they turned out:



Hopefully I'll be inspired to write more when I finish the truffles and dip them, and when I fill the dessert cups.

I gave the paints, the brushes, and the mold to my niece on Saturday and she seemed genuinly excited about the idea of shiny pink, blue, and purple chocolate flowers, so I was pleased about that too. What a terrible aunt, encouraging her to play with her food.

*It really is non-alcaholic, and I can't find anything on the label to indicate that it isn't, but I'm sort of wondering at this point. That's what I get from trusting a guy who regularly impersonates the Swedish Chef.

This is why Michele should not be allowed in a grocery store after 6 pm when she's hungry for dinner.

Yes, I know I've neglected my blog for over a month through the entire heart of the year (foodwise) so I'll save my holiday blogging for next year.

In the meantime, This is why I should not be allowed in a grocery store after 6pm. when I'm looking for something for dinner, because I'll inevitably see something way too complicated that will take hours to prepare and I'm hungry now, but I don't listen to my reasonable side. Oh no, I see the chicken and think, "gee, wouldn't it be fun to cook a whole chicken, I don't do that all that often."
"Ok, Michele, cooking whole chickens is good, but not fast, and it's getting on toward 7," says the reasonable part of me. Do I listen? No.

To make matters worse, I get this idea that fresh herbs would be really great, but I can't afford them at Dan's where I shop, so on the way home I decide to go to Whole foods which is 10 blocks out of the way of being on the way home because I saw they had little rosemary bushes shaped like Christmas trees, and I figure they must be on sale and still there since they had like a thousand of them two weeks ago, and hey I'd have fresh rosemary all the time. Awesomeness.

They were totally sold out, but the nice produce guy called every Whole foods in the area for me, and I didn't even ask him to, he just offered, which I thought was really good of him. He was just so darn helpful. Kudos to your employees Whole foods. I'll have to blog about them later since I find myself going there more and more often and they have an AMAZING deli and bakery. Anyway, back to tonight...so I grab a packet of "poultry seasoning" fresh herbs, which had exactly what I was looking for: Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. I love these herbs, so tasty!

And then I think, why don't I make Italian Cream Soda, since they have Italian soda here, and I have cream from Winder Dairy.* So I find the Italian soda, but none of the flavors really tickle my fancy, although blood orange is interesting, just not for putting cream in since I've never really liked orange cream anything. I know, I'm un-American not liking dreamsicles, sue me.

So as my chicken is starting to freeze around the edges from sitting in my car, I make my purchases and head home.

I have had this Ceramic pot with a lid that I've never gotten around to using for anything, although I've had the poor thing since the summer. I remembered it just in time to try it out.


The chicken just fit with enough room to add some potatoes and carrots around the edges. I put some olive oil in the bottom so the chicken wouldn't stick, and loaded it up. I also added garlic cloves, and those little miniature onions since they were lying around from making squash soup. I really like them, they add great flavor and are cute, and you can use a few and still save the rest in whole form, unlike if you were only to use half of a normal onion for something and try to save the other half, which will start to dry out and go moldy a lot quicker.

Ok, so when preparing chicken, everyone knows it will be much more tender if you leave the skin on, but this poses a problem: all the flavoring is on the outside of the skin, and eating the skin is yucky. So I like to separate the skin from the meat before I cook it, and stuff some of the herbs down in. It kinda makes it look a little weird, but flavor gets into the actual meat better.


Sorry for all you "I don't do raw meat people" but honestly, get a backbone, it's not that gross. Anyway, if you look closely you can see the rosemary and sage and a garlic clove stuck in under the skin on top of the breast.

I put a little more olive oil on the breast, filled the pot about half way with water to get some stock, put the lid on, and put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 2 1/2 hours. The rule of thumb, I guess (I googled this tonight) is you cook it 30 minutes per pound, or 45 min. per pound if your oven is at 325 degrees, which will produce a more tender chicken. Mine was 3 1/2 pounds so this was a little longer than I should have left it, and it was less tender than it could have been in the end, so use a meat thermometer.

Here it is just before I put it in. You can sorta see that the skin is lumpy and the herbs are sorta green under there, but think flavor.

One of the beauties of ceramic bakeware is that your food still browns so I didn't have to uncover it at all, unlike with tin foil coverings. I took it out of the oven and voila! The carrots and potatoes had awesome flavor, and the dark meat parts of the chicken were perfect. So, in the end I suppose it was a success even though I didn't actually eat until 11:45 at night. So the moral of the story is, go to the grocery store early, be inspired, and get a good ceramic baking dish. They are GREAT. And you can use them over a coals if you have a trivet to put it on. If you bake bread in it, it has the same effect as baking it in a brick oven. If you haven't tried bread out of a brick oven, I'm sad for you, it's amazing. So there you go.


My one problem is that I couldn't get the chicken out in one piece, but my dish is pretty enough that it doesn't matter. It was made in Bulgaria...and purchased at TJ Max.

As for the Italian soda I ended up getting Knudson raspberry sparkling juice and simply adding the cream, and it turned out great.

So, thank you my readers, for not throwing things at me, and yay, I'm back, which reminds me, I'm going on a somewhat ludacris road trip on Thursday to Ely, Nevada, and plan on blogging about all the interesting food places we go, so stay tuned!

*The best part about Winder dairy is not only that their milk actually tastes fresh, just like I remember from Country Boy dairy when I was a kid, but they also deliver, so I have a milkman. How cool is that. I recommend them if your willing to pay slightly more for a better dairy product. I'll write more about them later too.