Food politics, eating bugs and huge bowls of hummus

This article, from foreignpolicy.com, covers just a few of the important international food issues which we need concern ourselves with.

Speaking of chocolate just last Sunday, page two of this article shows in particular how investors can gain control of a huge portion of a resource, keeping the price low for themselves, while driving up prices and making a huge profit. In the meantime, that means higher prices for customers while the people producing the cocoa beans receive none of the benefit.

Yet another example of why it is important to focus on quality rather than quantity, and work with producers who are transparent and trustworthy.

For happy, and amazingly delicious chocolate, check out: www.armadillochocolates.com

And listen to our interview with chocolatier, Natalie, which aired on 4/24/11.

Bon Bons & Truffles,
Zambria

Rosemary Bread

Aka: Zambria's first attempt at bread.

And it pretty much worked!

Combine these three things:
1 cup warm water
1 package (1/4 oz) yeast
1 tbsp sugar

and wait for the mixture to bubble. Then add:
2 tbsp softened, unsalted butter
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp rosemary
1 tsp itallian seasoning (I used Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle.)

Add 2 cups flour, then add another cup small bits at a time (3 cups flour total).

**Side note about flours**Bread flour is best to use because it has a higher gluten content, which will react more with the yeast, causing it to rise to the greatest degree possible. I used both all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flour, which resulted in tiny but tasty loaves! If you want you can add gluten to your flours, which you can buy anywhere which has a good flour selection. 1/2 to 1 tbsp should do the trick!

Okay, now knead it for 12 minutes, put it in a bowl coated with olive oil and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Punch it down, split into two loaves and place them on the greased tray (or parchment paper) they are to be cooked on. Sprinkle with more rosemary if you please and let rise another hour.

Set oven to 375 degrees and brush with a beaten egg, then bake 15-20 minutes.

Make sure to eat at least some of your bread while its still warm.... with butter.

Herbs & Spices,
Zambria

The Cocktail Episode

We're over our hangovers, so as promised, here are all of the recipes shaken up by our friend Cain.

To make simple syrup, combine equal parts sugar and water and heat until the sugar dissolves. Then don't touch it and let it cool! Done!

Amer Picon is impossible to find in the good old USA, so you can substitute some savory orange bitters.

Enjoy! (of course only if you're over 21....)

Old Fashioned:
2 oz rye whiskey
1 tsp simple syrup
2 dash Angostura bitters

Build over ice, stir, serve in a short tumbler with an orange twist.


Bronx:
1.5 oz gin
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
3/4 oz dry vermouth
3/4 oz orange juice

Shake with ice, serve in a martini glass.


Mother-in-Law:
1.5 oz bourbon whiskey
1 tsp Cointreau (or you can use any type of triple sec)
1 tsp maraschino liqueur
1 tsp simple syrup
2 dash Angostura bitters
2 dash Peychaud's bitters
2 dash Amer Picon

Stir with ice, serve in a martini glass with a lemon twist.


Aviation: Zambria's new favorite cocktail in the world.
2 oz gin
0.5 oz lemon juice
2 tsp maraschino liqueur
1 tsp creme de violette

Stir with ice, serve in a martini glass.


Ward 8:
1.5 oz bourbon whiskey
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz orange juice
1 tsp grenadine

Shake with ice, serve in a martini glass.


Suffering Bastard: Trixi's new favorite hangover cure.
1 oz lime juice
4 oz ginger ale (the more gingery the better if you like!)
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 oz bourbon whiskey
1 oz gin

Build over ice, serve in a rocks glass.


Pegu:
2 oz gin
1 oz orange curacao
1 tsp lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Stir with ice, serve in a martini glass.


Brooklyn:
1.5 oz rye whiskey
0.5 oz sweet vermouth
1 dash Amer Picon
1 dash maraschino liqueur

Stir with ice, serve in a martini glass.


Martinez:
1 oz gin
2 oz sweet vermouth
1 dash orange bitters
2 dash maraschino liqueur

Stir with ice, serve in a martini glass with a lemon twist.

Stir and Enjoy,
Zambria

The Great Tamale Debacle

Tamales are a traditional dish made in Mexico and many other South and Central American countries. They consist of a starch-based dough, usually corn, with filling sometimes of meat, cheese or veggies, wrapped in a corn husk or another type of leaf, and then cooked (steamed, boiled, baked). This gives them infinite delicious variation.

But, if you have never made these babies before, just know....

They will be delicious but probably won't come out just as you had hoped.

I decided to make a sweet poblano tamale based on what our friend Daniella was telling us about tamales where she grew up, Bolivia. I bought my corn, but could only find corn in half husks, the first disaster.
But being the bull-headed cook that I am, I was not deterred. Shuck the corn and save your husks. Then take the kernels off the corn with a sharp knife. Once you have em all, boil them, until they are soft. I waited about 45 minutes and this was TOO LONG! My corn mixture got real soggy.

During this time you can roast your peppers if you want to use them. I chose poblano because it is sweeter than most hot peppers but still has a flavorful spiciness.

Roasting peppers:

-If you want to be fancy, make a fire and let the peppers sit near the coals, rotating them until they are happily scorched all around.

-If you want to be fast, start up your broiler and toss em in, rotating them until again they are scorched all around.

Then put them in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, and let them cool this way. It keeps in the moisture and helps the skin separate from the flesh.
After they are cool, you can peel the pepper easily, open it up and remove the seeds and veins. then slice em and put em on anything!




Now back to the corn, is it soft? Okay, either mash i or use a food processor or blender to beat it into submission. Then add whatever spices you like, I used:

2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp melted, unsalted butter (you can use shortening too.)

I absolutely recommend varying this, my mixture was much too wet, so I added cornmeal until it got a bit more reasonable, also adjusting the spices as I went.

So with these silly little half-husks, there was no way I could do something as cool as tying them up in little bundles and boiling them. So I made little tamale boats... And baked them. Once we got into the studio, I returned them to the oven with the peppers and some cheese for a hot little snack. You can't expect us to talk about food for two hours and not have snacks!

Also formed them into little cakes, fried them in butter and put fresh cheese and the poblanos on top. Yummy.

Sweet & Sour,
Zambria

Fresh, Hot Mozzarela Sticks!

After a pizza pizza party, you may have left over mozzarella cheese. When buying cheese, I generally buy the larger chunk. It is more economical and of course it is always good to have more cheese around.

EXCEPT if it is a soft cheese, or a fresh cheese and I know I won't be able to use it quickly.

But in this case, I used the extra to make tasty homemade mozzarella sticks!

Cut up the cheese. Make sure to use thick chunks, the smaller ones end up being mozzarella caterpillars. The one on the top right here is too small.








Have ready two beaten eggs and your breadcrumb mixture. I just used panko breadcrumbs so they would already be spiced and because I love that salty panko-perfection. Definitely try out your own seasoning mixtures if you like, regular breadcrumbs with Itallian seasoning, salt, pepper, and a bit of Parmesan or Romano cheese is a good start.

Dredge em in the eggs then in the breadcrumbs, then let em FREEZE. This is important, I only waited two hours, and this is the minimum! But I was huuuuungry.

Also make your own Marinara sauce:

Chop these guys
half a large onion
2 cloves garlic
1 small carrot
1 or 2 ribs celery, leave the leaves!

Then saute them in a bit of olive oil for not very long, just to soften the carrots a bit. Then add some canned crushed tomatoes, just enough to hold everything together and give it that "marinara sauce look" that you want.

Everything can be done to taste!

Take out your sticks and fry them in canola for vegetable oil. Make sure the oil is HOT HOT HOT before you start!

Then eat em, and frankly I had to start before I finished cooking.

Butter and Oil,
Zam

Things I Made at Work Today

Sometimes, I get paid to make delicious treats.

Like butternut squash macaroni and cheese.

and Lasagnettes.

Oh, I love cooking.

Fahrenheit and Celsius,

Trixi

DIY: Chicken Stock

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PUT DOWN THAT SWANSON'S BOX OF BROTH! Seriously. Let me see both of your hands. Okay. Good.

I had no idea how simple making a delicious chicken stock is until this past year. I also had no idea how much dimension and life a homemade chicken stock breathes in to ANY dish.

The basic stock formula calls for a few onions, some carrots, some celery, sprigs of thyme, a handful of peppercorns, and some type of chicken meat/chicken bone.

Stock utilizes all the kitchen scraps you usually throw away. I have a giant ziplock bag that I take out every time I cook. When I have onion ends, or skins, or celery tops and carrot butts, I put them in the bag. I leave the bag in the freezer until I'm ready to make another batch of stock. I also put the carcass from any chicken I roast in that bag.

The first few times I made stock, I used only the aforementioned scrap bag. The stock turned out tasty enough, but lacked a certain "chickenness" I desired. I asked a few people what I should do about the prevalent veggie taste in my stock. Chicken necks and chicken backs are the answer. At your local supermarket (or at mine, anyways), there are always chicken necks and chicken backs for sale. The necks are less than a dollar a pound and the backs are about a dollar a pound. They build the chicken flavor in your stock and create a heavenly velvet finish.

First take your chicken necks or backs, put them in your largest stock pot, just barely cover with water. Let the chicken parts sit in the water for 30 minutes.

Get your vegetable scraps ready. If you have no scraps, use two large onions, a carrot or two and a few ribs of celery. Cut them up into hunks. They don't have to be chopped particularly well, they're going to get all the flavor boiled out of them and become a great addition to your compost. A rule of thumb: one part celery and carrots to four parts onion. Add a couple sprigs of thyme and twelve peppercorns.

Add water until everything is covered.

Bring water to a boil. As soon as it boils, lower heat. Simmer, partially covered, for 3-8 hours. 

Some people like to skim the fat off of their stock. I don't. It acts as a protective layer between the stock and bacteria.

When the stock simmers to my liking, I strain it into a giant bowl where I let it cool. Then I put it in tightly sealed containers and store it in my freezer. It lasts for up to three months. Any time you need to use it, you can put the frozen block in a double boiler, directly in a pot on low heat, in the fridge, if you're a good planner, or you can even melt it in the sink under a stream of running warm water.

I swear, once you eat chicken noodle soup with your homemade stock, you will never consider boxed stock again. Homemade chicken stock adds oomph to any and every chicken dish. It's also a great way to recycle veggie trash. And it's ridiculously cheap.

Give it a whirl.

Chicken and Yellow Rice,

Trixi

 

DIY: The Miracle that is Red Sauce

I've looked through all the cookbooks I have (a paltry 13. I never know which ones to buy when confronted with the decision!) and consulted the mighty internet, but I cannot come up with a consistent definition of marinara.

The general consensus defines marinara as a tomato sauce containing a hearty amount of vegetables, whether they be onions or bell peppers, carrots or celery, I find no specifics. Marinara must also have herbs, mostly basil. Tomato sauce on the other hand, lacks any additional veggies or herbs. Just some salt and pepper.

So, today I want to show you how easy making Red Sauce (eh, you like that?) is. I made an incredibly delicious Red Sauce with things I already had in my pantry. And so can you! 

I make a habit of buying canned tomatoes every time I'm at the grocery store. The more I cook, the more I notice how often canned tomatoes come in handy. For my Red Sauce I used a giant can of crushed tomatoes, but you can use any you have, as long as they have some sort of juice or puree in them.

Other things I noticed in my kitchen worthy of belonging in this sauce: a white onion, dried porcini mushrooms, bacon, garlic, red pepper flakes and rosemary.

I took the porcini mushrooms, put them in one cup of hot hot water to reconstitute them. The first time I ever had to reconstitute mushrooms, I was told to leave them in the water until the felt soft. No time frame. I left them in the water for five minutes. They were not reconstituted. The mushroom tartlets I made turned out hard and chewy. Let the mushrooms steep for up to 30 minutes. Even then, check the tenderness, remove any tough stems. 

Next, I heated up a splash of olive oil in my large casserole over medium-high heat. Once the oil began to bubble, I dropped in the four strips of bacon I'd chopped into little bits.

I cooked the bacon until it began to crisp and brown, stirring diligently to prevent burning. When the bacon turned golden, I added the onions and rosemary.

I sauteed the onions until they turned translucent. When their edges began to turn golden, I dropped in a handful of garlic. Garlic is incredibly sensitive to heat and will burn faster than you realize. Keep garlic to the outside of your veggies, so it comes in minimal contact with the burner heat. After about thirty seconds, I added a dash of red pepper flakes.

I added one 35 oz can of crushed tomatoes, the reconstituted porcini mushrooms and the mushroom broth (juice?). 

I then stirred and simmered until the sauce thickened (about 35 minutes).

And now I have a whole bunch of delicious Red Sauce in my refrigerator! Actually, I have one container in my refrigerator, expressly for the lasagna I plan on showing you how to make later. The rest I froze. It thaws in no time and is delicious on pizza, pasta, some vegetables, anything! See how easy that was? Add more, add less. You can make homemade red sauce in barely any time at all. And if you want to make pasta, you can just boil the pasta straight in the sauce, for an extra rich and delicious noodle.

Happy eating!

Kit and Kat,

Trixi

It's a Pizza Pizza Pizza Party!

Well, dearest internet, after a brief hiatus I am here to bombard you with recipes and links. I'd planned on posting this delicious pizza experiment after our show on Sunday. But, I could NOT find my camera cord anywhere. I searched high and low and low and high and even in the middle of things, but it was NO WHERE to be found.

About half an hour ago, my sister called me. I lamented over my lost camera cord. "Can't you just put the memory card in your computer?" She asks. Why, yes, actually, I can. Thanks, Nicole, for teaching this computer illiterate lady a new trick.

Last week Zambria, our lovely little friend Brittany, and I made SKILLET PIZZA.

Originally we wanted to make two pizzas, one with meat galore and one with delicious veggies. This was quite ambitious. After we ate that meat-tastic monster pizza lethargy set in and we played Boggle instead of making the second pizza.

I would love to share with you the guidelines of this recipe so you too can make a lip-smacking skillet pizza of your own.

For ANY Skillet Pizza You Need:

• Crust
• Sauce
• Cheese
• Toppings (for us it was a meat medley!)

Now, for the specifics of OUR recipe.

I made dough for the crust in the afternoon so it would have time to rise by Pizza O'Clock. You can use any dough recipe under the sun. I used an incredibly basic one this time, but have also used a Beer Bock crust that blew minds, well, my mind.

• 1 package active yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp salt

Combine the yeast, sugar and water. If you're using a stand mixer, preform this step directly in the mixing bowl. Let the yeast mixture stand until foamy, about five minutes. 

Add the butter, flour and salt. Mix with the paddle attachment until dough begins to come together. Switch paddle with dough hook attachment. When the dough begins to slap the sides of the bowl and crawl up the hook, it's ready.  

On a floured surface, divide the dough into two balls. Place balls in two greased bowls. Cover and let rise at room temperature for AT LEAST an hour. I let it rise for about three hours. An overnight rising is ideal, but if you're like me, cooking foresight remains a black art. If you don't have the time or if you have some other good excuse, you can always buy pre-made pizza crust from your local grocer. 

I made a whole mess of Bacon Porcini Sauce, which is explained in my DIY: The Miracle of Red Sauce, but you can use ANY sort of sauce. Homemade or bottled.

Preheat your oven to 400F, positioning one rack on the bottom most notch in your oven and the other in the upper third of your oven.

Post sauce and dough prep, Zam and Brit headed over to casa de Trix. We sipped on some of Zam's homemade beers, and discussed the topping possibilities. What we landed on was a combo of some bacon pieces, ground beef, a crumbled sausage, onions and garlic. 

While I browned the meat to grey-pink perfection, Brittany shredded up a mess of mozzarella. And contrary to Brittany's belief, the cheese shredder has the most important job, because cheese shredding is the thing this lady hates the most. 

Now, these next steps take place very quickly. Heat your cast iron skillet, with about a tbsp of olive oil, over medium-high heat.

Begin stretching your dough. If you're a pizza pro, do those fancy flip things I don't understand. If you're not, just stretch it from the center out. Be careful not to thin dough too horribly much in the center. Once the dough looks roughly the size of your skillet, you can stop.

Make sure the skillet is super hot. Place dough in skillet. CAREFULLY push the outsides of the dough into the sides of the skillet.

This creates a dip-dish effect. The sides of your pizza will brown and crisp beautifully.

Quickly, spoon sauce over dough. (It's so quick, the spoon is a blur. See.)

Add a good portion of your cheese, followed by your selected topping.

In addition to mozzarella, we also added some blue cheese crumbles, you know, for maximum deliciousness. 

Now, place the skillet in the oven on the bottom rack. Leave in for about thirty minutes. Go check on your pizza. Make sure the crust is firming and starting to brown on the sides. If it is, place pizza on top rack for about five minutes to ensure maximum topping browning.

Now marvel at the beauty and ease of your homemade pizza. Wonder why you have ever eaten delivery or DiGiorno. AND EAT!

Chili and Dogs,

Trixi