Shiny Cooking

planning your vegetable garden: recommended seed catalogs

Amy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:28:51 +0000

Once you’ve got a rough plan of what you’re going to put into your garden this year, the next step is to purchase your seeds. The vegetable seed catalog market has always had loads of companies vying for your business, and with the surging popularity of local foods and gardening, the choice of where to buy seeds from can be overwhelming. Should you order from the catalog crowing about giant pumpkins? The one with mega-producing hybrids? The one with carefully-selected heirlooms? (...)
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do yeast fart?

Amy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:17:12 +0000

Via MSN:

5:06:55 PM Amy: my tweet
5:06:56 PM Amy: Whole wheat levain, day 3: http://bit.ly/cRM7Z6. I can’t help picturing microscopic wild yeast chowing down and farting in there.
5:16:46 PM Zach: ha
5:16:55 PM Zach: I always feel bad for yeast
5:17:51 PM Amy: i just did too, earlier today!
5:18:00 PM Amy: i was like, aww, when i bake, it’s going to die!
5:18:04 PM Zach: hehe, nod
5:18:05 PM Zach: it’s like
5:18:12 PM Zach: here guys! have this HUGE DELICIOUS FEAST, jut how you like it!
5:18:15 PM Zach: then you burn them all to death

whole wheat levain, day 4 and on

Amy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:51:12 +0000

Some of you have been expressing…concern…as to what happened with the whole big levain/sourdough plot. I’ll tell you what happened. A winter storm happened. Unripe levain happened. Flat bread happened. And a possibly unconnected but mysteriously coincidental horrible sinus flareup happened.

By day 4, I had a feeling the levain was ripe and active. Compare the above pic to day 3 and see how much the yeast activity made the levain rise in 12 hours. So I put it back into its normal container and fed it again that evening and planned to bake whole wheat sourdough the next day.

When I checked it in the morning, I frowned. (...)
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Post tags: whole wheat flour

planning your vegetable garden: deciding what to plant

Amy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:29:55 +0000

What’s going in your garden this year? If you don’t know yet, it’s time to put the remote down and get cracking. Super Bowl’s over. The Olympics are over. Time to moon over garden sketches and seed catalogs.

I know it’s almost a little late, but that’s why I’m doing this. So all you slackers like me can get into the garden just as quickly and efficiently as those horrible well-organized types who planned their garden in December and bought their seeds in January.

In this post, I’m going to tell you how to plan your garden and decide what to plant. And! There are future plans, oh yes. In the next days, we’ll be talking about what to plant from seed and what to buy as plants. We’ll talk about seed shopping. We’ll talk about seed starting. It’s a whole series thing.

One hint on the seed starting. (...)
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indonesian tofu, bean sprout, and cucumber salad with spicy peanut dressing

Amy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:57:32 +0000

This recipe featured on Wanderfood Wednesday and Real Food Wednesday!

This is the time of year when we write posts about how tired we are of winter. But I’m not. I’m totally over being tired of winter. I already gave in a few weeks ago to the allure of fresh produce, abandoning the frozen corn, green beans, and zucchini in favor of bean sprouts, cucumbers, and oh my lord grape tomatoes as big as your thumb.

There’s still part of a cabbage in the fridge — my cabbages grow to gigantic proportions, I don’t know why — but the last of fall’s carrots was gone over a month ago and yes, I tired of the old. I wanted the crunch of nutrients I hadn’t had fresh in months.

I abandoned locavore eating. Just until spring, and just once in a while. There’s something about fresh sprouts. They’re a promise. They’re potentiality. They could have become beans, but instead they’re going into my tummy. They’re earthy and new and taste of beginnings.

And this salad. Oh, this salad is (...)
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Post tags: bean sprouts, cucumber, green onion, peanut butter, tofu

daring bakers: tiramisu!

Amy — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:27:58 +0000

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Boy was I excited earlier this month to find that February’s Daring Bakers challenge would be tiramisu. It’s a dessert I’ve always enjoyed in restaurants — that is, when I’ve had room…and who ever has room? Mom and I agree that one day we should order dessert first, and then if we’re still hungry get something after. Who says dessert has to be last, anyway? (...)
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Post tags: cheese, coffee, cream, eggs, wine

whole wheat levain, day 3

Amy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:03:17 +0000

How about a nice tall glass of levain?

Today is Day 3, when we begin feeding the levain twice a day versus the once per day of days 1 and 2. That pic is at 3.5. I’ve put the levain into a tall, clear glass and marked it. In 12 hours we’ll see how much the yeast activity has made it expand.

Notice all those bubbles, made by that friendly wild yeast I’ve attracted. The catnip is this simple flour-and-water combination, at room temperature. The levain is sticky, and stretches when I stir it before discarding/feeding.

Its developed a slightly fruity, tangy smell, yet still with that sweet and fresh smell to it. I tasted a bit of the levain and yes, there was a hint of sour to it. Fingers crossed — it seems to be coming along nicely. Let’s hope I don’t eff it up somehow. (...)
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Post tags: whole wheat flour

whole wheat levain, day 2

Amy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:53:23 +0000

This is your brain on SmokeMonster!Locke.

Okay, it’s just the whole wheat levain before stirring it up on Day 2. You know what that liquid is on top? Sourdough breadmakers have a highly technical term for it. They call it hooch, because it’s about 15-20 proof. It’s a result of the fermentation process of the yeast. That would be the wild yeast that I set out this lovely catnip of flour and water to attract. There’s nothing wrong with hooch, so go ahead and mix it back in.

You can tell from the hooch that something’s going on now, but there isn’t a lot of bubbling or expansion going on yet. The levain has a comforting, sweet and fresh flour smell. (...)
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whole wheat levain, day 1

Amy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:51:12 +0000

Sis told me yesterday she began the starter for Amish friendship bread, which apparently involves mixing flour, sugar, and yeast and letting it sit on the counter. After it develops for several days, you can make sourdough bread from part of the starter, keep the rest of it going, and continue making bread.

I’ve always been a bit meh on the whole sourdough concept. It’s been a rare occasion when I’ve really dug a sourdough bread, but on the times I have, I’ve really, really dug it. The King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook has a whole chapter devoted to whole grain sourdoughs. I’d avoided it because the whole process seemed so wasteful (I’ll explain why shortly). However, a few months back I bought a different brand of whole wheat flour that was such a coarse grind that I found it incredibly difficult to bake with. I stuck it in the freezer, labeled it “coarse ww flour,” and forgot about it, figuring some use would arise for it sometime.

That time is now. (...)
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Post tags: whole wheat flour

roasted tofu

Amy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:28:52 +0000

About damn time we talked about tofu here, isn’t it? I mean, right up top there, it says “vegetarian, whole foods, and local foods recipes.” And yet, it’s taken all these months for humble tofu to even get a mention. Let’s rectify that now.

You can do this tofu roasted in a sesame and soy marinade in bite-sized pieces or in planks for sandwiches. Chewy and salty, with that smoky depth sesame lends, this roasted tofu is pretty irresistible. I have to forcefully resist just snacking on it as is until it’s all gone, it’s that good. Toss the bits into salads, or fried rice, or whatever strikes your fancy.

why should i care about bean curd?

Tofu’s the much-maligned vegetarian staple, inexorably linked with dirty hippies and horribly inappropriate preparations. Let’s run down some objections to tofu and then airily explain them away. (...)
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