Garlic and Herb Focaccia (and an Egret)

Hey all. I can't believe it's already February. If you didn't know, this coming weekend is Chinese New Years, Valentine's Day, and President's Day! And then Tuesday is Mardi Gras. Craziness, ain't it? I can't believe it's February already.

Anyhow, this past week I also decided to come face-to-face with something I've been avoiding... breads that take overnight to proof (to do that whole... developing the flavors thing!). The only other one I've done was that ridiculously amazing but labor-intensive brioche loaf. Of course, there are less time and labor intensive focaccia recipes out there, but oh, how can I deny Peter Reinhart? His recipes and formulas and instructions have yet to fail me. Anyhow, this involved lots of waiting, over-night refrigeration, and making my own garlic and herb olive oil! But it was worth it... doesn't it look tasty?



Oh. Minor digression. While I walked to Trader Joe's to buy fresh basil (I forgot fresh basil! How could I forget the fresh basil?!?), I saw a gorgeous white egret that decides to show itself on our little bay every so often. All I had was my phone camera, so I took a picture with my phone for the time being (it's my new phone wallpaper!), annoyed that I didn't have my camera with me. On the way back from TJs, I saw it was still there! Awesomeness. Still, it was starting to get really cold, windy, and cloudy, so I decided to hide back in my apartment. However, discussing this with my friend, I decided that I might as well go outside and track this bird outside.



Click below to see more photos and to read about Peter Reinhart's focaccia!

Photography, pound cake, and so much catching up

So for any of you living in California, or more specifically, the Bay Area... seriously, what's with the weather? Pouring rains, ridiculous humidity and mid-70s the next day, and "afternoon showers" that flood streets and burst pipes in the 5 hours it rains. Seriously? However, it has led to some great opportunities for photography and playing around with my camera.



The nights in the past few weeks have been amazingly clear, and the previous photograph and the next ones are a result from playing around with my shutter speed.

Look at how amazingly still that water is! This is the bay... all summer it was ridiculously windy, and it was definitely a lot colder at night back in July and August. Again, I'm not the biggest fan of scenic/still photography, but it's still fun to capture the weather and light is always fun to play around with... like when the sky opens up on the Bay with San Francisco in the background.



The sunset on Monday night after the afternoon "showers" was gorgeous. I was waiting at the bus stop on the way to an Owl City concert in the city, and the sunset was just so gorgeous that I couldn't resist.





But enough pictures of the bay (I promise there won't be too many anymore... I mean, you can only have so many pictures of the same place before you get sick of seeing yet another pretty sunset or "Jesus beams."). I have a backlog of photos of the food that I baked 2 weeks ago, and I totally forgot about the cranberry cream cheese pound cake that I baked for the tea party!



So, for some carrot cake, celebration challah, and cranberry cream cheese pound cake, click below! I apologize for the half-photographed steps, but I was in a constant rush making all of these. (Recipe for pound cake below as well!)

Cinnamon Buns and a Humble Dinner

So apparently I was inspired enough to bake last night after all. I think part of it has to do with the fact that, since the only people that end up eating my baked goods are people at my roommate's office, I needed to get the baking out of me since he's not able to have any modes of transportation up here for basically the rest of the week.

First, I just wanted to show off a picture of my humble dinner, a simple pork soup.



This tends to be generally what I go for when I make dinner... often it's a nice pot of soup or stew, or the simplest stir-fry ever. I actually missed my simple home-cooked meals a lot during the mini road trip down south... I hadn't eaten out so much in such a short period of time in a while. Home-cooked meals are so nice, and can be so simple... not to mention healthier and cheaper, too! This soup is very simple. Beforehand, you get some pork ribs/bones from the market (in about 1-2" cubes) and parboil them to get rid of some of the excess blood, fat, and marrow, and then freeze that for a later date (or, just use right away). On the day you want to cook it, you boil a nice big pot of water with a slice of ginger. After it comes to a boil, you toss the pork in, let it come back to a boil, turn it down to a medium-low, and let the meat stew enough to make a tasty broth (use a ladle to scoop away the frothy bone marrow that floats to the top). Season with salt to taste. In the mean time, when it gets close, prepare your noodles. This time around I used... thick green bean noodles (also known as cellophane noodles, glass noodles... I think? I know the Chinese name...! English names are so confusing!) which I soaked in water first. Tossed the noodles in for a few minutes, tossed in (many) handfuls of spinach, and voila, it is done!

Meanwhile, there were tasty things on the rise...



Now it should start looking familiar...



Especially after being baked...



And finally, glazed!



Yes, if you can't tell already, those are cinnamon buns. :d

I used Peter Reinhart's recipe this time around. I used to use just a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com which was fun, but a lot messier. Comparing the two... honestly? I don't know if I can tell the difference. It's been over half a year since I made the other cinnamon buns, though, and I wasn't as good at baking with yeast back then either. In fact, cinnamon buns were the first yeast breads I made! I think, in the end, Peter Reinhart's dough recipe stood up to the test, though... just with regards to how it tasted after it cooled down and how well it stood together. Another big difference between this cinnamon bun and any others I've seen is that the filling isn't overwhelmed by butter. Most other ways I've seen it done is rubbing softened butter all over the insides before sprinkling it with cinnamon and sugar. Personally, I like this way better, but that might be because I don't like butter. It's definitely a lot less rich and a lot less gooey and sticky, but it tasted wonderful, especially still warm. I decided to use a simple white glaze, which hardened beautifully. I usually prefer a cream cheese frosting, but since these were going to be eaten a whole day later by people running around the office... I figured this would be a nice solution... and it was great! It hardens ever so slightly when cooled, making it less messy (even though working with it was kind of messy!).

I heard reception at my roommate's office was good. :D This shall be my new go-to cinnamon roll recipe. ...I want to make the sticky buns some day. :D

Does it look amazing? (And so cute! It's like a little snail shell...)



(order some now! :P)

Oh yeah! And I baked another banana bread again... low fat, again, as usual, with whole wheat flour (half white whole wheat, and half whole wheat), and this time, with sugar cut down and replaced with agave nectar. That stuff is interesting... I need to experiment more with it at some later point. I also added some extra spices, and I think that they added a nice touch without really being over-powering, or even discerning. Must play around with that more as well... I have another 3 bananas frozen in the freezer...

Also, I totally need to just bake during the day instead of at midnight... my pictures turn out so much prettier with natural lighting, sigh.

Casatiello and Pasadena/LA Foods

Greetings! So it's been a while since I posted about baked goods, but it doesn't mean that I haven't been busy with my lovely oven (Oh yes, I love it so... it's big enough to fit my large baking sheet, as opposed to my old oven in my old apartment which was tiny.) Also, I just went on a mostly spontaneous trip down to Pasadena with one of my good friends from high school, visiting his old college, Caltech, and his old college friends. It was a fantastic trip full of fantastic food... I haven't eaten out so much in so many days in a row in a while. Though, I suppose that's what happens when you go on a trip. I'm genius.

On the way down, we took Highway 101, a longer, but definitely more scenic drive down from the Bay Area down to the South. On the way down, we stopped by Morro Bay with its ridiculous fog, giant platters of salads, and shell stores, then Solvang, a quaint little Danish town (unfortunately, we arrived around 6:00, so everything was closed for the most part), and Butterfly Beach in Santa Barbara to walk along the beach at dusk (we missed sunset by about 15 minutes).

At Morro Bay, we stopped by Outrigger Restaurant, and I polished off a giant plate of Caesar Salad with giant prawns.


Photograph courtesy of Andrei Lita.

The giant plate sitting in front of me was an Ahi Salad with seared Ahi tuna, a delightful vinaigrette and a slightly spicy mango salsa. His was more delicious, but he decided to order it first, so I defaulted to my usual Caesar Salad with dressing on the side.

The next day, we ate at some Asian noodle restaurant in the Alhambra area for lunch, explored the Caltech campus, and eventually ended up at his newly-wed friends' house. There, we proceeded to eat dessert at Bulgarini Gelato, an amazing little gelato store tucked away in the back corner behind a Rite Aid in the middle of Pasadena. Although I wasn't too hungry, I snuck some bites from everyone else. Their chocolate gelato is slightly salted and was fantastic. The hazelnut gelato is made from hazelnuts freshly roasted and ground right there, and is amazing. They also had interesting flavors such as goat's milk with cocoa nibs (I'm not a fan of the goat flavor, but I can see how somebody who likes it would love it), lime with milk, cantaloupe, and just so many different unique flavors. I wish I had a chance to take photos, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to bring my giant camera with me.

After gelato, we proceeded to Park's BBQ in Korea Town in Los Angeles. There, I watched what was basically 3 small-ish guys finishing off what must've been about 7 or 8 pounds of beef--2 orders of Bulgogi (seasoned sliced beef), what I think was an order of another type of beef cut, and 1 order of beef tartar, which is raw ground beef with an egg (or just an egg yolk?) cracked over it. My goodness, I wish I had my camera to show just how much meat was consumed. I can't say how good the beef is since I personally do not eat beef (although, I did eat the smallest sliver of beef tartar just as a new experience, and, well, I guess it tasted like meat?), but the others seemed to like it. There was also an order of pork belly... I'm not a big fan of slices of fat, but I can see how it was good. The meat aside, though, Park's BBQ had an amazing assortment of small Korean dishes like kimchi, pickled cucumbers, and the like. All of it was great, and if you or your friends are big meat eaters, I suggest that you try out Park's BBQ. Next time if I end up there, I would love a chance to try out their marinated shrimp and assorted mushrooms (basically the only thing on the menu not beef and not pork belly).

The next morning, for brunch we all went to Elements Kitchen, which has an amazing and fantastic brunch menu. When my friend and I arrived (late, oops), there were small slices of a raspberry cream cheese danish that was delectable, and a piece of a candied ginger scone that I did not try, but had rave reviews. People ordered an array of things from Ebelskivers to Mac 'n Cheese with Truffle Oil to Banana Fosters French Toast to a Farmer's Market Salad.

What are Ebelskivers, you ask?

Here is a look into one:



What a beautiful breakfast pastry stuffed with home-made blueberry jam. If you look closely, there's a drip of amazing maple syrup dripping from it. Unfortunately, I did not know the other people well, so I was too embarrassed to ask for photos of their food.

But my Farmer's Market Salad was beautiful.



It was a decomposed salad (Yes!) composed of beets (I usually don't like beets, but it wasn't too bad in this salad), baby zucchini, figs, strawberries, pears, and heirloom tomatoes (which weren't too flavorful, alas), candied walnuts, prosciutto, and buttered lettuce with a vinaigrette drizzled on top. It was delectable, and the vinaigrette really tied things together. I had a bite of the Banana's Foster French Toast, and although I'm generally not a fan of french toast, this one was amazing. ...Maybe it just means that other french toast, including mine, wasn't amazing enough... :|

Anyhow, that was the culinary exploration for the past few days. If you're in the area, go check out these places--you won't be disappointed.

And now, back to the baking. I've been wanting to make Peter Reinhart's Casatiello, an Italian rich bread filled with pockets of cheese and spiced salami. I haven't had a chance to, just because, although I often have left-over cheddar from making quiches and such, salami isn't in my usual pantry, but I made a trip to Trader Joe's just because, and came back with this:



Which, after much mixing and kneading (oh my goodness, the mixing and the kneading...), I placed my dough in a 9" cake pan and sprinkled it with more sharp white cheddar:



After the oven, resulting in:



Isn't it beautiful?



And it was amazingly tasty. Which is amusing to me, considering I don't really like rich breads and I don't like salami, but it was still tasty, darn it! Next time, I want to cube the cheese more than grate/shred it, but I liked the white sharp cheddar as a choice for cheese. I was debating making a sort of "vegetarian version" with just different types of cheese. :d

I also made a whole wheat, low fat chocolate zucchini bread that day. I managed to only put half the sugar in compared to the original recipe... I had planned to halve the recipe, but then decided not to, but forgot about this fact when I put in the sugar. Oops. But it still didn't turn out too bad, and was polished off by people at my roommate's workplace.

Anyhow, that's all. I'm not really inspired to make anything right now... although, I did also pick up some agave nectar when I went to TJ's, and I have some bananas in the freezer, so I might play around more with the whole diabetic-friendly (or at least, more-friendly) banana bread loaf. I hope the amount of text wasn't too over-whelming, or, at least, was informative. :)

Cheers!

Scales, Cinnamon Raisin Bread, and Julie&Julia

I have decided that I have a fascination with bread, out of all the things that I bake. Cookies become a pain in the butt--seriously, all the scooping and plopping and individual things... what a pain! Bars are easy but boring, and fancy cakes... well, it's harder to know what to do with a giant 3-tiered 9" cake, you know what I mean? However, bread is fantastic. There is something so therapeutic about kneading bread, and for some reason, it's fascinating for me to watch it rise. The repressed biology nerd inside of me squeals a little squeak of joy thinking about the gasses created by the yeast... also, it just reminds me of genetics lab when we were replica-plating oh so many yeast plates...

That being said, breads are less fudge-able to me. I can usually play around with a quick bread recipe, or a cupcake recipe, but bread recipes... I try and follow the steps important to the chemistry of rising bread to the tee. So, with my gift certificate that my old work place gave me (I love them all--they ate through batches of cookies and cupcakes and bars during my undergraduate career, and when I graduated, they left me a gift card with a very generous sum... many thanks to dearest Ezra who is supposedly the one who put it all together), I bought myself a scale and a microplane zester. I'll spaz about my microplane later. For now, I have a beautiful black scale sitting in my kitchen, helping me measure out just the right amount of bread flour. I hate sifting my flour, and this beautiful machine allows me to just dump my flour out into a bowl--how amazing is that!?

I present to you, my beautiful new kitchen scale:



We'll see how long this baby will last.

With this sleek and simple, and yet useful, new scale of mine, I made two loaves of Peter Reinhart's Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread, sans walnuts (Yes, I don't like nuts of any sort in my baked goods, blasphemous, I know), which I suppose means just a Cinnamon Raisin Bread. This bread turned out to be one of the softest bread I made. Unfortunately, I dried out kind of quickly after being sliced--I'm not sure what to do about that. But the next day when it was just sliced, the bread was amazingly soft and tender.

Mixing all the ingredients together. That's right, metal bowl and a wooden spoon--no fancy, expensive Kitchen Aid for me. It's okay--I actually like it this way:



The dough after kneading and after the addition of the raisins waiting to rise for the first time.



After the first rise, the dough is then divided (this time with my awesome new electric scale!!!) and rolled into a loaf to rise a second time:



Doesn't the final product look SO GOOD?



I think it does. And it is very awesome indeed. I personally prefer a little more cinnamon flavor to the bread... I actually already added more than the recipe called for. Maybe it's something to make up for since I don't add walnuts in. I was thinking of giving it a little bit of a cinnamon swirl to it, or adding dried cranberries to it instead.

There has been a little more baking here and there--a chocolate chip chocolate fudge cookie, which screams of chocolate... perfect for those choco-holics out there. There has also been some breakfast fun with a whole wheat apple oatmeal pancake, but I'll inundate you with more food porn later.

Oh yes! And I had a chance to watch Julie&Julia, and it was an AMAZING film. To all the guys out there, it wasn't just a silly chick flick. It was great. How do I know? I dragged three other guys with me, and they all loved it. ...So they weren't the manliest of men, but it was still a good movie. It was sweet, and also hilarious. Meryl Streep is an amazing actress, and she was perfect for the role of Julia. :) You should ALL go see it.

Time to get back to those cover letters...

I hope everyone is doing great, and thank you guys so much for the comments and to those of you who are reading this! :)

First Baking Post - Light Wheat Bread

So I've decided to start out with a something that I've baked recently. I have about two years' worth of photos of baked goods stored up, but I still have yet to find a good way to put them up.

Yesterday, I experiment with Peter Reinhart's Light Whole Wheat Break from the his Bread Baker's Apprentice.


Photograph taken from Amazon.com

It is one of the most amazing books ever... there is actually a flock of bloggers who are doing the Bread Baker's Challenge, where they all bake the same recipe, once per month, until they finish the book, but I'm clearly not structured enough for that at all.

I decided to do his light whole wheat bread because I have been looking for a good whole wheat recipe to put on my little menu, and because I love whole-wheat bread. The previous whole wheat breads have been either too coarse, or an unsatisfying texture. I did have an excellent oatmeal wheat loaf, but it's not quite the same.

I'm still horrible at trying to take pictures in the middle of baking, and, to be honest, I'm kind of messy, and I'm not a big fan of getting flour all over my beautiful Canon XT... I abuse it enough as it is, hehe. That, and I have horrible lighting in my kitchen, which is annoying and is a deterrent from taking more photos.

This is the loaf in the pan after the second rise, right before entering the oven!



Look how beautiful it is! The first rise was an hour and a half, almost two hours, which is the recommended time, but the second rise was only for 30 minutes, or even less. The bread was rising a lot faster than usual (which was odd, because it was fairly cold here), and I had to finish baking the whole thing before Target and REI closed. :P

This loaf seemed to be lopsidedly over-excited about rising in the bread pan. Nice and hot, right out of the oven.



As amazing as hot bread is, most places have been saying not to slice bread while it is still hot, or it will dry out quickly. I guess this makes sense, since, once sliced, the steam (i.e. moisture) will escape the bread, thereby making a drier loaf. So, after running errands, two hours later, my roommate and I dove into the loaf.



This light whole wheat loaf was part bread flour and part whole wheat flour, which gave it a nice, light texture, and a slight whole wheat flavor. It gave a nice crust, as well. Personally, I did not like the flavor too much--it was a little too light for me, but my roommate still liked it.