Extra Schmaltz!

Hello all, Here is a recipe from my friend and co-worker Kristine (there's a link to her photography on the side-bar). Looks like she measures things the same way we do! This makes a great veggie side-dish or light meal: Try this very simple recipe when you have some bok choi. I've made it twice so far and really like it! I'm calling it red wine bok choi. Coarsely chop a mound of washed bok choi and saute it with about 1/2 cup of walnuts and ~1/2 cup of dried cranberries. I was pleased using safflower oil. Add a couple spills of red wine (I'm guessing that translates to a little less than a 1/4 cup). Add salt to taste. Saute for about 10-15 minutes or until bok choi is still a little crunchy. That's it! Serve over quinoa (rinse this grain well then saute with garlic before cooking) and top with parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

So, this weekend I finally tackled mozzarella. My friends Kevin and Ranae have a cow and are selling awesome raw milk to folks in the department (on the down low, of course). I didn't have great luck with making yogurt, since I had no idea what I was doing, so for some reason I decided to try an advanced cheese--mozzarella. The amazing thing is that it turned out great! I didn't take photos because it basically looked just like the ones on Dr. Fankhauser's Cheese Page . This guy is my new hero, and I urge you to check out his page before starting any dairy projects. So, the take-home message is that: yes, mozzarella can be done! Mom, you should definitely try it out because it's soooo yummy. I even got the Italian seal of approval from Toni, even though I don't have a damn water buffalo in my back yard, as the slow-foodies insist is necessary. Also, I recommend getting an old electric blanket for the incubations, because that helped me a lot and will also fix my yog...

Here's the perfect dish for a cold night and several subsequent cold days as tasty planned-overs. I use an 'authentic' (supposedly) version, rather than the Lutheran church cookbook version that has all kinds of crazy things in it, like macaroni and tomato sauce. In this version the only thickening comes from the potatoes as they break down from cooking. I make mine a touch spicy, since that's just how I roll, but that's probably not 'authentic'. The dish will be much yummier if you add some stew-bones or oxtail, so try not to omit those. I threw in some parsnips, which added a lot to the flavor. 2-3 oxtails or stew-bones 2 lbs cubed boneless chuck 2 Tbsp. lard, shortening, bacon drippings, or oil 2 large onions 4-5 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks (you can also sub-in parsnips, rutabagas, or turnips for some of the taters) 3 heaping Tbsp. sweet Hungarian paprika (I sub-in 2 tsp. sharp paprika) 1 qt. water S & P In a large, heavy pot, br...

So the other day, while playing cards at my friend Rim's house, we got to talking about cooking, and I mentioned that I really don't know how to cook any Syrian food. She offered to show me how to cook some upcoming Friday(her day off). We ended up deciding to make it an iftaar, since we tried to invite our other friend Rasha (that didn't work, since iftaars are usually a family thing, and therefore she ended up eating with her family) and because Kathleen from my program is fasting. In the end, it was a bunch of Christians (and me) having an iftaar, but it was a lot of fun. Due to the chaos of the whole event, I didn't witness the cooking of everything, but I've listed the recipes for most of the stuff below. She also cooked some stuff the day before, and so I don't have the recipes for that stuff. I didn't annotate those dishes in the picture of the spread below: Here're the recipes: Maqluuba("Upside down") with meat Maqluuba is one of the Pa...

Tonight we had a lovely gathering at the Byway with a few friends, which we'd coordinated at our volleyball game on Tuesday. We had a couple of soups, buttermilk biscuits, and many desserts. My contribution was a vegetarian squash soup (to go with Manny's meaty vegetable soup). There are as many ways to make squash soup as there are, uh...other numerous things. So these are just guidelines (as usual). If I hadn't been making it for a crowd I probably would have made it roaringly spicy, but as it was it got good reviews: 1 big winter squash (mine was mysterious lumpy green one) 1 large onion, chopped finely 3 carrots, chopped finely 2 red peppers (roasted or not), sliced into thin, 1" strips 1 qt. good vegetable (or otherwise) broth 1/2 c. buttermilk 4 Tbsp. butter olive oil black pepper nutmeg ground chipotle or cayenne salt minced chives to garnish Cook the squash however you like--I cut mine into quarters and seeded it, brushed it with olive oil, and baked it for an ...