foodfluency.com

I’m a little too old to party all the time. And if you got that reference, you’ll agree with me. So, I’ve spent the past few New Year’s Eves with my husband, cooking up delectable dinners with our favorite wine (A Rhone Valley red for him and some Malbec from Argentina for me), and snuggling into bed. It’s all very relaxed and happy.

As an added bonus, this year, we went out and bought a cream whipper. Although the instructions said it was to be used to make whipped cream ONLY, the husband ignored all that. As well he should.

Project Number One: Carbonated Strawberries. It was a subtle effect taste and texture-wise, but you hear them crackling, which was hilarious.

Project Number Two: Jello/Foam Cucumber. I’m not really sure what was going on here. I got him the book, “Cooking for Geeks” as a stocking stuffer. He already is a fantastic cook, but, it’s time to dabble in molecular gastronomy. So, jello/foam cucumber. Yeah. It tasted just fine, but, I’m not sure what one would use it for.

Project Number Three: Coconut Whipped Cream. I’ve been missing whipped cream really bad since the whole non-dairy thing started, so, he put some coconut milk and sugar in the can, and voila. It was delicious. It’ll taste even better with some vanilla in it, I think.

Then it was onto actual dinner. For our entree, the husband made chicken wrapped in prosciutto, atop pasta with homemade veggie sauce and basil herb sauce. We often have components of this dish for quick and easy dinners, but tonight he threw it all together. Delicious.

It was my job to make dessert. I still haven’t reached the point where I can cook too much without a recipe (though sometimes I can and I’m much better at not using the measuring cups for every little thing!), and I especially can’t bake anything without a recipe. So I used a recipe. Two actually.

The first was this lovely recipe from Chef Chloe, a well-known and respected vegan chef, for chocolate strawberry shortcake cupcakes.

I was really wary of the espresso powder. I hate coffee. I love the smell, hate the taste. No one really understand how I can love dark chocolate, love “wine that tastes like dirt”, and still find coffee too bitter, but, there you are. But it was a small amount, compared to the overall volume of batter, so, I thought it would be okay. Then I mixed everything up, and the smell of coffee was so strong. And you could taste it in the batter. ARGH!!! But, then I baked it and all was well. You could not taste it in the final product. Yay!

I must also talk about the frosting. My nana has a frosting that I associate with wonderfulness and childhood joy. Probably because it’s made from Crisco. lol. Everyone I’ve made it for in my adult life has honestly not known what to make of it and has backed away slowly but firmly. But whatever. It’s good! And this frosting had that same oily texture. It was great. I was so excited! “See?” I said. “This recipe won a contest on Food Network. So there!” I feel a tad vindicated.

I wanted to add some chocolate ganache on top. So I searched the web for dairy free grenache. Then I laughed really hard because grenache is a grape and of course that is dairy free. After ten minutes of forcing myself not to ask the husband, who would make fun of me, I remembered the word was ganache and found this. I halved the recipe, because who needs two pounds of ganache? I was especially happy with it because it turned out nice and shiny. Ganache needs to be shiny, imho.

So then we ate. Here you can see the husband’s hardworking hands.

The cat enjoyed some nibbles too.

UPDATE: After sitting out on the counter all night, the cucumber mint jello foam has formed a new consistency. THIS is what you can do with it, the husband tells me:

I still dare him to eat it.

Happy 2011 everybody!

My absence can be summed up in one sentence:

“The boyfriend” shall now be known as “the husband.”

I just helped him make tsatsiki. AND he just got me a beer. I’m going to like the married life…

Now that all the rigmarole has died down, it’s time to get back to the blog. Allow me to jot down a few thoughts I’ve had regarding food and weddings.

1) We attempted to introduce our friends and family to the wonders of asparagus by including it on our reception menu. But it was soggy. Damn it. Now we’ll have to invite them over to dinner one by one to make them some good asparagus, just so they don’t keep the wrong idea.

2) You know how you are supposed to freeze some wedding cake and then eat it on your first anniversary? Yeah, our freezer isn’t that big. We’re eating it now instead. Screw it. It was a delicious carrot cake tier and I would rather eat it sans freezer burn anyway.

3) The wedding even helped me in my attempt to recreate Chipotle’s chicken. I stopped in on my way back from my hair and make-up trial. There was some 16-year-old kid behind the counter who got all slack-jawed and was like, “You have beautiful eyes…” “Hey, thanks. So…. what do you put in the chicken?” heh heh heh. More on that in a later post.

4) We went to Sonoma/Napa on our honeymoon, so we tastes a lot of wine. Our favorite was Bartholomew Park in Sonoma. They don’t distribute, but you can buy online. We ended up buying the cab (2005) and the sauvignon blanc (2006). The sauvignon blanc was actually a big deal for us, because we don’t like white wine all that much. Damn, I’m using “we” already. It’s true though! The husband likes it a wee bit more than me though. But this was pretty tasty, so we decided to go with it.

Stag ’s Leap was delicious too, especially their premium stuff. But it costs way too much money. I’m also happy to report that Malbec is popping up in Napa here and there. If you aren’t aware, I’ll drink Malbec with anything. It’s my favorite. The Napa versions weren’t as good as the stuff from South America, but, I’m glad they are trying.

5) We bought a lovely set of Riedel Vitis champagne glasses for our toast. If you are looking for a high-quality set, I recommend them. Especially if you are a giant, because they are enormous.

6) A channel wedding ring makes cooking… interesting.

7) Licking envelopes still tastes nasty. I’m waiting for someone to invent glue that tastes like cupcakes.

All in all, my cooking skills have grown tremendously. I’m reaching the point where I don’t need a recipe anymore. That’s huge! One night, my husband even reached for seconds of something I made. That’s even huger than the no-recipe thing, because he never gets seconds of anything. We alternate cooking nights, so I’m always on the lookout for fun and interesting new food to try.

It’s nice to be back!

I can only call this diet cake.

I hate that word… diet. And the way it is sneered about whenever I grab a low-fat version of something,”Oh, are you on a diet?”

I dunno. Sort of?

I’ve lost about 20 pounds since Easter, and the reasons for it vary. A lot of it is just cooking for myself. It hardly even matters what I’m cooking either; it’s all better for me than a steady diet of McDonalds. Cheaper too! I’m kicking myself for not realizing this sooner. Oh well. I’m also on weight watchers, which hasn’t forced me to do anything except track what I’m eating, which keeps my portions under control. But it’s also given me access to a lot of “low-point” recipes, which taste pretty awesome in lots of cases. And frankly, the “diet” differences have taught me a lot about how food works, and that there are many different ways to make a certain sauce, for example.

I prefer to think of the whole thing as re-learning how to eat.

But, I won’t deny that making your weight go backwards is a challenge. You have to learn what you can live with in terms of cutting corners. For me, it’s low-fat mayo instead of the real stuff. I can also let go of french fries. And I think I lost ten pounds alone by substituting my morning breakfast sandwich and doughnut for some cereal.

However, I have a sweet tooth. I refuse to let chocolate go.

So my ears perked up at my ww meeting this week, when the leader said, “You all know about making cake with diet soda instead of oil, right?”

I had never heard of such a thing, but most of the people there had tried it. You just take ordinary cake mix, and dump in a diet soda instead of the water, eggs, and oil. Sounds simple enough, and there are lots of flavor combos you could try. I used a dark chocolate cake mix with a vanilla cream soda, because that sounded safe to me.

And it tasted great!

I was so skeptical, but it just tasted like ordinary, store bought cake. Hardly gourmet, but, excellent for the people who insist on chocolate daily. And the best part is, if I made it the ordinary way, that one piece of cake would have contained an extra 200 calories. I am SOLD!

A few more pointers:

• Use the Waist Watchers brand soda. It doesn’t contain any aspartame which can be weird to cook with because the aspartame breaks down when heated, so I’m told.
• Don’t use an entire can. Dump a little bit out or take a gulp first.
• Top with fat-free whipped cream instead of frosting for additional “diet” goodness.

My next test is to see if my bf likes it. He’s more skeptical than me, but I think he’ll be surprised.

Cake please!

Stay tuned for a food blog unlike any other.

Perhaps I should explain?

All my life, I’ve been a big failure when it came to food.

Consider the mint cake incident of 2002:

FAIL!

And more recently, the ribbon candy that decided it wanted to crystalize into a cucumber.

FAIL!

I know those are both baking, and not cooking examples, but trust me. The cooking pictures are too horrific to share.

I could blame my family, for not teaching me properly when I was growing up, and for interrupting my serious food concentration with shenanigans.

But that would be petty. And I might have to fess up to how my sister got covered in flour in the first place.

Instead, I have been working towards figuring out this cooking thing, step by step. The process can be painful, but I’m light years beyond where I used to be! Check out how excited I was when presented with my very first non-butter knife! I used it to cut bread dough. Watch out world!!!

Seriously though, for me, food fluency is more than just cooking. It’s understanding everything that has to do with food. How it tastes, how it looks, and, yes, how one makes it. This blog is going to chronicle my learning process. I’m kind of a “poke it and see what happens” kind of learner, so it could be really amusing.

Stay tuned!