May, 2009 -

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Don’t let anyone ever tell you ESers don’t know what to do with their fruit. All your recipe suggestions are worth reading, but I like Martha‘s:

Tarts, pies, buckles, cobblers, slumps, claufoutis, sorbets, ice creams, semifreddos – so many options! My favorite for a taste of summer in January are jams & preserves which are great for using up super ripe/verge of spoiling fruit and are actually pretty simple to make. When all else fails, toss just about any fruit in a blender with some ice and a healthy glug of tequila…done and done.

Erica has an even more to-the-point summary:

fruit + booze is as timeless a combo as hookers + sailors.

– And Karen reaches back to our hummus post to toss a secret our way:

I just found this and it looks like a winner… I’m going to try it. I just made my hummus with warm beans and that may be my mistake according to this story (recipe included!) Surprise secret ingredient makes for sublime hummus.

Cold beans! Who would have thought? Back to the hummus test kitchen…

(Photo: Flickrich)

in Rants & Raves 1 comments

by Bliz

Artsy Photo of the Day

What happens to a Natie Light after forgetting it’s in the freezer…
and then forgetting again that you left it out.

by C. Christy Concrete

Fix The Fuck Up: It’s A French Thing

Editor’s Note: Fix the Fuck Up is an occasional series in which we try to look like we actually know what we’re doing, well, after we’ve already fucked up. Here’s the original massacre.

Eggs are evil.

Not misguided evil, like Darth Vader. Or megalomaniacal evil, like Dr. Moriarty. Or naturally evil, like cats. More like an oblivious, self-centered, lah-de-dah kind of evil; like Q. Eggs just do their own thing, often in spite of your best efforts to tame them. They collapse when you whip them into foams. They turn into waterlogged mush when you overcook them. They force you to blame your significant other for your own emission control problems. But the evilest thing eggs can do is fuck up both baking and cooking; sometimes both at the same time, as was the case with Allyson’s recent quiche quatastrophe.

Hunters and Gatherers

Recently it seems that everyone has been talking about some economic crisis. I’m like, hello, that’s life for a college student every day. I’m a cheap date. I like cheap fun. Now I want to share it with you.

During the summer, when my friends and I had to put away the beer bongs for more socially and parentally accepted activities, we discovered the great joys of pick-your-own fruit.

Like some of us here at ES, I don’t know what to do with a plethora of fruit, besides boring fruit salad. Mostly, my friends and I just enjoy being together, getting a tan, and eating the fruit as we wonder aimlessly around the orchards. However, if you are a fruit wrangler (baker, whatever they call you people), picking your own fruit is not only fun; it’s an easy way to get local, fresh, ingredients, and is definitely a cheap day out for the entire family (you can even bring the kids..if you want). Yes, I said easy. Don’t let gansie fool you, it’s actually not that hard. I wouldn’t partake in any outdoor activity that required perspiring just for fun.

Here in the Northeast, strawberry season will soon be in full swing. In a few more weeks, apples, peaches, cherries, blueberries, raspberries and MANY more will come into season, and you can actually pick many of these yourselves. Harvesting isn’t just for apples, people!

To find out what is available in your area, I’d suggest checking out PickYourOwn.org, which has regional harvest calendars and contact information for local pick-your-own farms.

Oh, and one last thing…Please, PLEASE tell us, just what DO you do with all of that fruit? We’re gonna need some ideas!

in Rants & Raves 18 comments

by 80 Proof

It’s Just a Little Crush

It really wasn’t a contest. Would you rather eat pizza and get red pepper flakes stuck in your gums and feel the burn for 15 minutes or would you like to try the crushed ones on the right? Easy choice of course. I love my red pepper flakes and garlic salt on pizza (and Parmesan when available). But those round, light brown things almost ruined the experience for me. I never understood why they couldn’t be crushed up or why the containers would dribble out two or three pieces at a time. It was damn near impossible to get an even covering over a slice!

The solution after the jump…

Hott Links: Politics, Pizza, Pinkberry and Poetry

– Breaking news from the Endless Simmer DC Bureau. I would like to pre-emphasize that this is not a joke. The DC City Council is considering banning jumbo slice pizza:

Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, who represents Adams Morgan, says the pizza parlors selling single slices along 18th Street, some of which are open until 4:30 a.m., are part of the problem when it comes a recent rash of street fights, stabbings, muggings and even a shootout involving two plainclothes police officers…

While most people who spoke with ABC 7 in Adams Morgan thought the proposal was a joke, Councilman Graham said he is very serious. He says he’s already talked to the mayor about the issue and is drafting legislation.

People like Jim Graham are the reason the Libertarian Party exists. Give me pizza or give me death!

– Down at the White House, President Obama doesn’t have to worry about his girls gorging on any dangerous jumbo slice. All Sasha and Mahlia want is some Pinkberry. And since DC has no Pinkberry stores, the White House chef has learned to recreate the recipe, and even lets the girls make up their own flavors. Sweet deal.

– Speaking of the Obamas, we leave you today with further concrete proof that the President is a foodie. The NYT just dug up this poem Obama wrote while enrolled at Occidental University:

Underground

Under water grottoes, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.

–Barack Obama

Now write us one about bacon, Barack!

(Photo: mp459)

in Desserts / Politics 1 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Gluten-Free Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

_{a. k. a. Bunraku cupcakes. Get it? Of course you do.}

I know several people who have the bad luck to suffer from celiac disease, a disorder of the autoimmune system that manifests itself as varying degrees of wheat intolerance. The impact of this affliction is that they can’t enjoy a lot of the foods that some of us might take for granted; breads, beer, cupcakes, etc.

Vegans and celiacs are like kindred spirits in this sense; we take forever to shop because we inspect every ingredient list in the grocery store aisles, we don’t make any friends at restaurants when we viciously interrogate hapless servers, and we both suffer when we screw up, albeit in different ways. For most vegans, the lifestyle is a conscious choice; celiacs don’t really have a say in the way their bodies behave.

Baking gluten-free isn’t as difficult as it’s been made out to be, although it does require a few extra ingredients and involves an additional step or two. Most gluten-free recipes will call for the use of two or three different kinds of gluten-free flours. The reason for this is that while wheat flour is, for the most part, bland and flat; flours made from other grains and seeds each have their own distinctive flavors and textures that can easily overwhelm and throw off the final result. A good example is corn flour, which has a very identifiable taste and works great for corn muffins or tortillas, but not so much if you’re trying to utilize other flavors, like chocolate.

Recipe after the jump.

May 2009