I will not be hungry in this world

South Asian Film Festival coming up!!

I wanna plug an awesome film festival coming up November 11-13th in San Francisco. Check out the 3rd annual Third I South Asian Film Festival!! I can't wait to catch some of these films. It looks great with some of the stars or film makers in attendance! Check out the film list here and how to get tickets here.  For those of you who don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area,  fret not!  There might be a Third I near you.

Farm fresh pickin's

Two months ago, I joined Mariquita Farm's CSA  (Community Sustainable Agriculture) program.  Community Sustainable Agriculture is a direct partnership between the consumer and the farmer. The consumer buys a 'share' of the farm at the beginning of a growing season. The farmer or collaboration of farmers grows organic vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs-whatever they grow on their farm.   You can pick up your produce every week from local pickup points, which are central to various neighborhoods, reducing the long-distance trucking involved in produce delivery. Here's what my haul looked like last week:

Aren't these veggies just so beautiful????  I wish I had taken pictures of my earlier baskets!    I'm planning making a mean butternut squash soup or mash as the weather gets cooler.    By the way, that weird looking pink vegetable on the right hand side of the basket is a watermelon radish.  I didn't really want to cook it, so we just shredded it, added a little salt and black pepper, and added it to salad.  Delicious!

Notice the tomatoes?  They're actually the last of my tomato-picking frenzy in September.  I dragged DK out at 8am on Saturday morning to go pick tomatoes at a U-Pick Day at Mariquita Farms in Morgan Hill.  Yes, he thought I was crazy.  But I think he had a pretty good time, as proved by the full baskets, one huge tub, and dirty fingernails for at least a day afterwards.   I wish I had taken pictures, but suffice to say, 15 pounds of beefsteak, Early Girl, and San Marzano tomatoes came back to San Jose. 

At first, it was a case of...how are we going to eat all of these tomatoes before they go bad? Luckily there are 4 tomato lovers in our current household, so it wasn't too much of a problem!  Here's how we ate 15 lbs of tomatoes in one month:

1) giving bags to friends! "Come here, little girl...you want some nice, firm, juicy tomatoes???"

2) Eating them like apples.................

3)Making a simple caprese salad by slicing up the beefsteaks or Early Girls, drizzling with good quality olive oil, slapping on some mozzarella and fresh basil and liberally sprinkling the whole shebang with sea salt and black pepper.......it's to die for!!

3) Making tomato soup- Slice up a few tomatoes and cook them down until they are soft. Saute a few onions and garlic, add the tomatoes and a cup or so of vegetable broth or water.  When merrily bubbling away, add whipping cream (I use fat free half and half) and use an immersion blender to whiz it all together.   Season with salt, pepper, cilantro, what have you. Float a lil bit of olive oil on top or seasoned croutons.   (Overachiever that I am, I like making my own from sour dough bread sprinkled with rosemary).

4) Slice them up for salads.

5) Slice them up over cooked pasta with a whole mess of Parmesan cheese and olive oil.

6)  Using them for the gravy when making chole.

My CSA deliveries are finished for the year (boo!), but I'm totally looking forward to starting up again in the spring. In the meantime, I've got the new fall issues of Gourmet and Bon Appetit to plunder for vegetable ideas!!

 

We all scream for.....roti prata?

I'm a member of Virtual Tourist, a great online community that has thousands of travel tips, a forum to ask questions, pictures, and best of all, a forum to set up meetings of local VT'ers wherever you go. On our round-the-world trip, we took advantage of this feature and met a whole crew of locals and travelling VT'ers just like us.  This meetup turned out to be lots of fun, so we thought we'd try it again in a different country.

Martin S, a VTer in Israel had shared many travel tips about Israel and kindly offered to host us there.  Well, as many of you know, we didn't quite make it.

A few months ago, I saw a note on VT from Martin saying he'd be out in the Bay Area as part of a family vacation!  I shot off an email to see whether we could meet up, and he told me of an informal get together/potluck in Novato at another VT member's house .  With freshly baked methi paratha and chutney in hand (I made the paratha, not the chutney), I headed up there, excited to meet local VTers and to meet Martin and family.   

We had such a great time! Martin, his wife, Zora and daughter Tal were totally charming and funny.   Jessica, the hostess turned out to be an avid baker- a woman after my own heart!  She graciously shared her sourdough starter and recipe with me--I'm planning on attempting it one of these days. 

I also met Carol, another extraordinary baker with whom I had quite a long conversaton about the joys of bread baking vs dessert baking.  She shared her roti canai recipe and some great bread cookbooks with me.   Here's the recipe and my attempt at it.

Roti Canai

14 oz all purpose unbleached flour

1/4 cup condensed milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup water

1 egg, beaten

2 TB canola oil for coating the balls of dough

1. put the flour into the bowl of a stand mixer. add milk, oil, egg and water. mix on #2 for 5 minutes with a dough hook.

2. divide the dough into 6 equal pieces and roll into balls. put them in a single layer on a large plate. pour 2 TB. of canola oil over the top and roll the balls around so that they are well coated. cover with plastic wrap and let them rest for 9 to 10 hours at room temp.

3. flatten out the first ball and roll out as thin as possible with a heavy rolling pin. starting at one end, roll up the bread into a long snake, coil the snake starting at the outside edge forming a cone shape. push down the cone to flatten it into a patty. form all the breads this way. Let the rest covered w/plastic wrap for at least 30 minutes.

4. heat a large heavy pan over medium-low heat until very hot. take out one of the patties and roll it into a 6" round. slap it on to the hot pan and cook for 10 seconds. flip and cook for 10 seconds. repeat the flipping until the roti is golden and covered darker cooked spots.

5. remove to a plate covered with a clean cloth. wrap the roti in the towel and cover w/another overturned plate to keep warm. repeat with the remaining breads.

So am I the only one that didn't make the connection that 'canai' comes from 'channa', (a mixture of boiled chickpeas in a spicy gravy from Northern India which it was traditionally served with) I mean, talk about a "duh!" moment.   Somehow it seemed so obvious now......

Mascarpone cheesecake

My first recipe entry!

Two weeks ago, Myrna and I got together for our book/CD trade.  I'm really liking this arrangement- I've gotten to hear some new music (Rachel Yamagata) that I've never heard before as well as read some books (I just finished 'Heartburn', by Nora Ephron, which I never realized is a story with recipes, much like 'Under the Tuscan Sun'.  Guess I should check out the Meryl Streep movie!) 

We met at Lavanda in Palo Alto for drinks. Well, that was the original plan!  According to Myrna, it was known for its great desserts. So even though I thought I would be virtuous and skip dessert, it was not to be.

I can't even remember what I ordered (so it obviously wasn't very good!), but Myrna's choice was a lovely, light, marscapone cheesecake. A lone slice, without any garnish or coulis to mar the simplicity of the presentation. Lovely! Usually you see cheesecake covered with whipped cream or with a puddle of sauce staining the cheesecake blue or red.   

Now before you coulis and puree lovers start sending me indignant email, let me clarify-It's not that I don't like coulis or a yummy fruit puree, but I prefer to taste the actual cheesecake first, and let the flavors roll around in my mouth and then, only then, dip my fork into the sauce for the finishing touch.

I think this love goes back to the days when my favorite dessert were those no-bake cheesecakes. (Yeah, I know--they're still around,but every time I see those blue boxes, I shudder) .  As I grew wiser in my dessert choices, I moved on to cheesecakes from Uncle Otto's..a sadly now defunct restaurant on the Peninsula, that my dad would bring us cheesecake from, if my brother and I were good. They had the best raspberry cheesecakes--but it was marbled through the cheescake that when you took a long and lingering bite, you got the sensation of tangy and creamy all at once.

When we asked our waiter if we could get the recipe, we were told the pastry chef was out, so we'd have to call back later.  Fine.

How's that gonna help a girl with a Wednesday night cheescake craving?????

Easy peasy- I switched on my computer and found Michael Chiarello's recipe. I also checked on Epicurious.  The main differences seemed to focus on changing the proportion of cream cheese to mascarpone.  I made a few substitutions based on what I had on hand, and here's the result.  (The strawberry was just for a spot of color, ok?)

And here's the result.

My changes and additions:

I didn't have eggs in the house, just Eggbeaters. I noticed a distinctly eggy taste when I tasted it right after cooling.  The second day, the eggy flavor had diminished--maybe through the melding of the flavors?

I used ready-made graham cracker crumbs in the house (not having any other cookies--I know, WEIRD). After eating the cake, I decided that these were too dry and bland for a crust-better to use something nuttier and flavorful for a crust.  I love Nonna's biscotti--maybe I'll try that for my next go-round.

Next time, I am going to add more zest, but will try lime, as I prefer that to lemon. ah, happy times lie ahead!  Now if I can just get my family and friends to eat more cake........