Not Your Average Fruit Salad

Today, I was inspired. As I stood at the kitchen counter snacking on peanut butter and green grapes (don't bash it till you try it) I looked down and thought, these grapes would make a really yummy salad. So off I went on a run.

While running (or as some might call it wogging) I mulled over the ways to eat grapes. At first I thought about roasting them like cherry tomatoes with a little salt and pepper then drizzling with honey (I still might try this one out). A couple blocks later I settled on keeping them light and pairing the "salad" with some of last night's Polenta and a spicy chicken breast. After downing a couple glasses of water after my run I began my slicing and dicing of grapes, tomatoes, parsley, garlic and mint.

I have to admit, I haven't been all that inventive in the kitchen lately, so this was my big return to creativity and I was a little intimidated. Of what? No idea. With the boyfriend out of town this week I'm the only one eating my food tonight! So really, it was only my ego that I had to battle with. Regardless here I am, 60 minutes and a shower later a happy camper.

Without further ado here is tonight's concoction:

Zingy Fruit Salad with Spicy Chicken and Polenta

Gidgets and Gadgets:

Whisk

6" cast iron skillet (any other skillet will do, but I like the flavor a well seasoned cast iron skillet adds)

Cereal bowl

Medium bowl

4qt pot

Chef knife

Cutting board

Wooden spoon

Ingredients:

4c. Water

1c. Polenta grain

1c. Washed green grapes

1c. Cherry tomatoes

1/2 c + 2tsp Olive oil

1 tbsp. Spicy mustard

1/8 c. Red wine vinegar

2 Garlic cloves

1 tsp Mint

1 tbsp Italian Parsley

1 tsp Shredded Coconut

2 Chicken breast

1/8 Lime or lemon

To taste:

Paprika

Red Pepper Flakes

Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1) Heat the skillet over medium-low and put in 2 tbsp. Olive oil meanwhile bring water with a dash of salt to boil.

2) While the skillet and water heat wash and slice grapes and tomatoes in half and put to the side in the medium bowl.

3) Place the breast in the skillet and flavor with Paprika, Red Pepper flakes, Salt and Pepper

4) Mince Parsley, Mint and Garlic

5) To make the Mustard vinaigrette whisk together Mustard, remaining Olive oil, Vinegar and Salt and Pepper. These are guesstimations, so do some good old fashioned taste testing to get the flavor that you want.

6) Flip Chicken breast once it has cooked about half way and add Polenta to the boiling water.

7) Turn down the water to low and stir the Polenta constantly to avoid chunks. Polenta is done once no more water is left and the consistency is creamy.

8) While the Polenta and Chicken breast cool whisk in the chopped Mint, Parsley, Coconut and Garlic to the Vinaigrette mixture.

9) For the finishing touches toss the sliced grapes and tomatoes with the Vinaigrette and spoon fruit salad onto a plate. Next to that lay down a bed of Polenta and place the Chicken breast on top. Spritz the top with the bit of lemon or lime! Enjoy!

Summer Salad

This weekend the sun was shining bright in the sky as Clay and I did alittle volunteer gardening at the local elementary school. You can check out photos from the day at Clay's Flickr site. Waikiki Elementary School has teamed up with AINA IS (a part of the Kokua Foundation) to start a community garden on the property. Mostly the garden is taken care of by all the little hands at the school with guidance from some very energetic parents. I must say it's pretty amazing what little hands can do!

I kept looking around at the volunteers (which ended up being mostly the non-kid or yard bearing types, perfect ex: Clay and I) taking deep breaths realizing that there are still a bunch of really good people out there doing what they can to take part in their community. Just when I thought I couldn't be any more impressed by the massive heirloom tomatoes, citrus trees and wonderful people we were surrounded by I turned around to see some of the staff from Town Resturant working away in the field. Town holds a soft spot for me as is, but now? NOW?! They are far and away my favorite resturant in Honolulu. Why? They have hooked up with Waikiki Elementary School to buy their produce to make it into delicious dishes! That means when Clay and I treat ourselves we are further benefiting our little community.

But back to the weekend. After spending a couple of hours yanking at weeds, picking limes and developing mini-blisters on our hands the crew sat down to enjoy a potluck lunch. I was also introduced to some amazing heirloom tomatoes! To wrap up our little adventure we were offered our choice of limes, basil, rosemary and nasturtiums as a thank you from the school for helping out.

Needless to say I was grinning ear to ear as we headed home for an afternoon nap. We came home to a sizziling little abode. Summer is here and so is the heat! Which makes for awesome afternoon cat naps, but our desire to crank up the oven or even stove is at an absolute minimum! As a result we made a wonderful summer salad full of ingredients we'd collected at the Farmer's Market and the school. So here it is, our little meal, inspired by fresh, locally grown organic food! It filled us up, and after spending time working in the garden it was most certainly rewarding!

Summer Salad topped with Mustard Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

1 medium head of lettuce (pick a kind any kind!)

1/2 c. grated mozzarella cheese

Handful or two of cherry tomatoes

1 grilled corn cob

2 Italian sausages

Olive oil

Small handful of Nasturtiums

Mustard Vinaigrette (Recipe to follow)

Gidgets and gadgets:

Big bowl

Salad servers

Cast Iron Skillet or 6-8" saute pan
Knife
Cutting board

Instructions:

Heat pan to medium low, pour in olive oil, let warm. When olive oil is warm (just as it starts to shimmer). This may take a bit, but patience is key! Keep an eye on them and turn occasionally to ensure even cooking.

While this is cooking you can wash and chop the other ingredients (we had left over corn on the cob, but I'm positive frozen corn would work just as well. although it would lack the yummy grill taste) minus the Nasturtiums. Save those beauties for last to top the whole thing off!

Make the vinaigrette:

2 tbsp spicy mustard

1/2 c. olive oil

1/4 red wine vinegar

2 pinches salt

couple twists of black pepper

We did this completely to taste so I'm not sure of the exact proportions, but this is pretty darn close. Basically, put it in a bowl and whisk the shnarf out of it! Add each ingredient to taste. Done!

Once the sausages are done slice them up and add to the salad bowl. Toss with vinaigrette, top with the Nasturtiums and serve it up!

*If you get too hot while cooking make yourself a Mojito! It was pretty satisfying! I just got myself a little mint plant that has completely taken off and so we're rediscovering all sorts of ways to use it! On that note, Happy Summer Solstice and a hip hip hooray for warm weather and long lazy days.

*Lime image courtesy of Clay Mckell.

Homemade Home

Today we are finally initiating our new home, aka: housewarming! It'll be a potluck so I don't really have to worry about the 20 some odd people about to descend on our little abode. However, I did decide to take on the desserts and drinks.

We decided to go the traditional route for the drinks. Beer for the boys and something a little more fruity for the drinks.

But the desserts? Well this little mixer doesn't just serve any old dessert. As always I did it all from scratch. Tonight I'm going with Haupia and Chocolate Pie and some the best cookies I've ever made (in the form of Chocolate Chip Cookies). What I ask you, makes something feel more like home than homemade chocolate chip cookies? Hum? NOTHING! It's the end all be all of comfort food. Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Can't be beat. Nope nope nope.

This glorious recipe comes from what I've dubbed the Baking Bible, the Bible for short. Every sanctuary needs some place to get life advice from, I get mine from a little cookbook called Baker's Illustrated, published by the folks at America's Test Kitchen. I'll go into this book more at a later date, but for now let it suffice to say that every recipe I've tried (with the exception of a pie crust, which may be my fault) has exceeded expectations. They are in constant search of the perfect fill-in-the-blank and always have amazing tips (one of which will come later in this recipe).

Either way, these are the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made. I may also have a secret ingredient that I drop in for good measure. ;-)

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (10 5/8 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

12 tablespoons melted butter (then cooled till warm)

1 c. packed (7oz) light or dark brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 large egg plus 1 yolk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 drop Fiori di Sicilia (aka secret ingredient)

1-1 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Gadgets and Gizmos

cookie sheets (the double layer super-duper kinds are by far and away the best to use)

1 large bowl

1 medium bowl

1 small bowl

wooden spoon

wisk

cooling racks

wide spatula (the thinner the thickness the better)

Directions

Adjust the oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in medium bowl; set aside.

Either by hand or with and electric mixer (I just got my Kitchen Aid mixer in the mail, GLORIOUS! That said, there is something about mixing cookie dough by hand that I prefer) mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk and vanilla until combined. Stir in the chips to taste.

*Now this is the part that I think made these puppies perfection!* Instead of plopping them onto the cookie sheet hoping they turn out decent looking, the perfectionists at America's Test Kitchen took cookie plopping to the next level.

Take a lump of dough (your standard size, nothing special here) and roll it into a ball. Then pull the ball in half and rotate until the rough sides are facing out. Finally, stick the two halves carefully together. At this point the top will be all dimply etc. and the smooth bits will be on the bottom and inside. Get it? If not maybe this image will help you out a bit. In the picture I have just split apart the dough and am about to roll the smooth edges down to stick them together.

I guess the final finally is to place these items of drool-worth beauty on the cookie sheet spaced roughly 2 inches apart and stick them in the oven for 15-18 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Once they have baked, let them cool on the sheet. Remove the little golden beauties from the sheet with a wide spatula and place in a stomach for storage.

Okay fine, you can use a plate or some other container to store them too. Either way, Buon Appitito!

Roasted Red Bell Peppers

Roasted bell peppers are one of those magical foods that are easy to make and go with just about everything. If I could have it my way I'd have a massive bell pepper plant that would provide me with an endless supply of big red bell peppers. You can eat them alone or use them as a "secret" ingredient in sauces. They can be mellow or spicy. But they always add a wonderful smoky flavor to whatever you use them for!

Bell peppers, who belong to the chili family, are originally from Central or South America and made their way to Spain along with chocolate. Yum! The misnomer is due to good ol' Christopher Columbus who sailed the ocean blue. Want another fun factoid about bell peppers? All colors of bell peppers, the green, yellow, orange and red all come from the same plant. To achieve the different colors you simply pick them at different stages of ripeness. The green peppers are the babies of the crew, they've got the shape but not much flavor. Whereas the red peppers are the old men full of life stories. All the other colors are somewhere in between, still in development but also have some flavor to add to the mix.

Red peppers tend to be a little on the pricey side so when I see them on sale I stock up and its a red bell pepper fiesta! Often I use them fresh in salads or pastas but without fail I make a batch of roasted red bell peppers. As I mentioned above the process is easy and you only need two ingredients: red bell peppers and olive oil. The following recipe has been handed down to me from my momma who got it from her grandma who probably learned it from her mother and so on and so forth. So here we go, I'm sharing my first family recipe. I have my hesitations, but really, everybody should know how to make something so yummy with so many purposes!

Ingredients

Red bell peppers

Olive oil

Gizmos and Gadgets

Baking pan

Chef knife

Tongs

Zip-lock bag or some sort of sealed container

Directions

Put the rack on the highest groove thing (anybody remember what those are called?) and turn on the oven to broil.

Slice the bell peppers into quarters, removing seeds and pith (the white stuff that has no flavor but does a fantastic job holding onto those seeds). Place cleaned quarters onto the baking pan skin side up and drizzle with olive oil.

Remove from the oven when the skins turn black, about 10-15 minutes. With the tongs (you can use your fingers, but I don't recommend it) put the quarters into the sealed container and let cool. When they are cool enough touch, take them out and remove skin. Due to the steam that has accumulated and if you let the skins blacken this should be a relatively easy process. Once they're cleaned slice the little buggers up into about 1/4 inch wide slices and serve, store or do whatever you want with!

*You can also put whole peppers on cooling coals and let them cook whole as shown in the picture above. Either way they taste heavenly! My biggest tip is to not let them cool completely. ie: don't put them in the fridge over night. Doing this kind of defeats the purpose of letting them sit in the container while still hot. I did that once and well, I learned my lesson!

Mixer goes Yippy

Today, I am a Yippy! You know the Jack Johnson-loving, repurposed canvas bag-toting with adorable flats Hippy. I'm pretty much guilty of that everyday with the exception of the cute flats, I usually opt for my slippahs. So what makes me say that I'm especially Yippy today? Because after work I donned my little "Kiss the Chef" apron and made myself some granola! If this were the summer of 1969, I'd be your standard hippy. Nothing says “hippy” more than homemade granola. Okay, the hairy armpits are up there too but thank goodness those have gone out of vogue!

Now down to business. Why am I making homemade Granola? First and foremost, whenever I go wandering down the cereal aisle I end up looking longingly at the Granola while reaching for the super plain wanna-be Cheerios. Cereal out here in the wild blue yonder along with milk and pretty much every other food item (with the possible exception of Papaya, Mangos and Spam) are a fair amount more than on the Mainland. While I love my body and want it to be healthy and all that jazz, I have a difficult time biting the bullet when it comes to a puny $10 box of overly sweet Granola. Oh yeah, and why not try to make your own? All these fancy boxed and packaged stuffs came from a little kitchen at some point! Why not my own little kitchen?

On that note, I’ve made Granola a handful of times now, each time getting a little bit better. The first time was a burnt mess. Thank goodness for my boyfriend and his hungry tummy, they somehow ate it all in one day. The last time, well I can’t remember the results so it must have been mediocre at best. This time however, I feel like I’ve made it to the next level. I would even go so far as to call it a success, a small one, but a success all the same. I found the recipe on Kiss My Spatula (one of my favorite foodie blogs). I tweaked the Spatula recipe a bit according to what I had on hand, for example I made my own applesauce from an old mealy apple that has been sitting in the fridge. If I ever have a bad apple again, it’s getting cooked into some applesauce! Super easy and very yummy. But without any further ado here it is my own little piece of the Yippy pie:

Ingredients:

4 cups old fashioned oats (not the quick cook kind)

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 cup shredded coconut (I used unsweetened)

3 tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp salt

¼ olive oil

½ cup applesauce

½ cup honey

1 cup dried fruit

Tools:

Small and Large bowl

Wooden spoon

Wisk

Measuring cups and spoons

Cookie sheet with lips

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 350°. In the bowl, stir together the oats, nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Whisk the oil, honey and applesauce in the smaller bowl.

Pour the liquid mixture over the oat mix and stir with the wooden spoon until all the oats and nuts are coated. Spread onto the sheet pan.

Place in oven and bake until the mixture turns a nice even golden brown, around 30-40 minutes depending on the oven. During baking stir occasionally with a spatula

Remove the granola from the oven and allow to cool completely, stirring occasionally. Once cooled add dried fruit. Store in an air-tight container.

*I had a normal flat cookie sheet which worked fine but the edges got a little bit burned, and when I mixed the granola part way through baking some bits fell off the edge. I should also note that I have one of those itty-bitty ovens that’s about 25° higher than what I set it too. Also, if you have one of these little ovens the bake time will most likely be less than normal size ovens. I’ve found that pretty much any nut would be yummy in granola and I omitted the flax seed from the Kiss My Spatula recipe.

This made a nice crunchy granola, the cinnamon and nutmeg added just the right amount of flavor. I can't help but wonder if it really does save money. On the flip side I know all the ingredients going into this mini-masterpiece and as always there is the satisfaction of knowing it was made with my own two hands.

Peace, love and crunchy granola man!

PS: The lack of a granola picture is due to our eagerness to chow down on it. Whoops! I guess it really was a success!

Watermelon Granita

Summer is here! I'm a summer baby and nothing makes me happier than the long days of warm sun. A few summers ago now I was lucky enough to be shipped away to Italy for a month by my Grandpa. I spent that month stumbling over my Italian, jumping off of boats into the beautiful Medd and eating pizza, gelato and whatever else they fed me! That was in 2007, but the taste of that July spent in Italy is still with me today in Honolulu because I've done my best to recreate granita!

What is a granita you ask? Well, for starters it's delicious! I had it for the first time in Sicily two summers ago. It's the perfect antidote to being too hot with just the right amount sweetness. In Sicily they eat it for breakfast or mid-afternoon snacks with huge puffy brioche buns. Technically speaking it's frozen fruit juice or chocolate, but fruit flavors are way more popular, especially lemon. The closest comparison I can make is a sorbet but fluffier and way less sugar.

After staring at the watermelon sitting staring back at me for the past couple of days I had an epiphany. Granita! The days here in Honolulu have been getting warmer by the minute and I've been craving iced treats. I did some research and found several suggestions for recipes. As usual with most Italian inspired recipes they're vague and once you get the basic idea down you can do whatever you want with it! I didn't make the buns to soak up the melted bits, but maybe next time. So here it is, my own version granita:

Watermelon Granita

Ingredients:

1 med-small watermelon

1/2 papaya

2 tablespoons grapefruit juice

1 tablespoon sugar

Tools:

sharp knife

medium sized pot

sieve

medium bowl

2 metal pie pans (preferred but not nessecary)

Slice up the watermelon and papaya into cubes and place in the pot on medium-low heat. Add in the sugar and juice. Then let it sit and simmer mixing occasionally until the fruit starts to break down. Then pour the mixture slowly through the sieve and into the bowl to get out the bigger chunks and seeds. Finally, evenly pour the mixture into the two pie pans and place in the freezer. After about an hour take a fork and break up the little ice crystals, continue every couple of hours.

*I made this at night and didn't do the "fluffing" but did take it out in the morning and scraped with the side of the fork to get a similar effect. Also, you don't have to do the bowl step, I just don't trust my pouring and holding a sieve skills. I also don't have a sieve so I spent most of the time making this recipe squishing the watermelon with a pastry cutter and transferring it between a steamer and bowl to get the juice out...ugh. Hassle. These instructions are more my after thoughts of how I would have done all of this. Either way, the flavors work and comes out yummy! The perfect sunny warm summer day treat!

Buon Appitito!

Here goes nothing!

I can't say exactly when I decided to start my own blog. I'm guessing it was planted in there by my mom or by my boyfriend or by my friend Sarah, who just happens to be working on her own blog about her crafting adventures. One way or another the idea grew in the back of my mind until it boiled over into the rest of my brain. It may have also had something to do with the large amount of photos that I've taken of my food conquests over the past few months.

So here I am, with a my very own public writing space and a stock pile of photos on my cell phone. What will I be writing about you ask? Food. I love food. For starters, you literally cannot live without it. Second, if you can't live without it, why not invest some sweet loving time into it? I believe that food not only feeds the body, but the soul too. Some people splurge on clothes to make them feel better, I buy a higher quality chocolate.

That said, I don't think I've ever not cooked on a budget. Maybe someday I won't have to think about it, but for now, while living in Hawaii where rents are high and pay is low (not to mention my impending return to school) the budget remains in tact. So this, in essence, is going to be my adventures of feeding both my boyfriend and I yummy food and hopefully original food while living on a student budget for at least the next 3 years! Suggestions will always be appreciated! I wish I had something cool to cheers with. I guess my mostly empty cup of coffee will have to do! Cheers, buon appetito and wish me luck!