This comes from Once Upon A Tart…, the cookbook, and the restaurant. Erin and I happened upon it when we were looking for breakfast in New York. We ordered some quiche and tart and this salad. I took a cameraphone pic of the book and could only decipher the ingredient list, so here is what I did with that:

Grate 3 or 4 medium carrots into a large bowl. Take a handful of mixed olives (about a cup, with pits) and pit and rough chop them and add them to the bowl. Finely chop almost a full bunch of cilantro and two scallions, into the bowl. Rinse and drain two cans of chickpeas, mix into the bowl. Stir this up really well, making sure all the ingredients are well distributed.

For the dressing, in a smaller bowl: One or two cloves of garlic, finely minced. the zest and juice of one lemon. 2Tbls ground cumin, 2tsp paprika, a strong dash of red cayenne, 2tsp salt, generous grind of pepper. Whisk this until combined. Whisk vigorously and add in 3Tbs of olive oil.

mix the dressing into the salad, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for an hour before serving.

1) cook noodles until almost done, drain and rinse cool
2) slice pork, cook in frying oil in high heat until cooked through
3) add sesame oil(s) with garlic, leek, and peppers. cook over high heat for 3 minutes, peppers should soften.
4) reduce heat and add noodles with soy sauce and sherry. stir-fry for 2 minutes
5) add beansprouts and continue to cook for 2 minutes. add water if noodles start to stick.
6) stir in the parsley and serve with toasted sesame seeds on top.

This is from a Thai & Southeast Asian cookbook I bought at Borders on clearance. It was delicious. I’m really glad I used spicy sesame sauce, it added the heat that I expect from any asian dish. And I probably wouldn’t use a pork chop in the future, it was a bit too tough. Maybe if I would have cut it properly, against the grain.

I toasted some leftover waffles and made a sandwich with bacon and egg. Next time I should make some maple-flavored waffles so that I can emulate this: Dunkin Donuts Waffle Sandwich

Crispy Waffles (adapted from serious eats)

Whisk together in a batter bowl: 8.25oz All Purpose Flour, 1tsp baking powder, 1/4tsp salt.

Whisk together in separate bowl: 2 egg yolks, 1 3/4cups milk, 1/2cup canola oil.

Make a hole in the dry ingredients and pour in the egg/milk mixture. stir until all wet but still lumpy. Let batter sit while you whisk 2 egg whites to rather stiff peaks.

If after whisking your batter is still quite thin, stir in two tablespoons of flour. Fold egg whites into batter.

Be sure to use enough batter in your waffle maker to fill it. Waffles without enough batter suck.

Eat with syrup, bacon, jelly, eggs and coffee.

1.25 cups (6oz) All Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt

whisk these four ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. it’s important to whisk them, this is in lieu of sifting. Who does that for cookies?

1.5 cups (3.5oz) of rolled oats
1 cup (4oz) pecans chopped and preferably toasted in the oven until nutty smelling
1 cup (5oz) dried cherries or cranberries, chopped. look for some with less sugar.
4 oz chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. I usually use the ghirardelli bittersweet bars from the grocery store.

stir these four ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

in a small bowl, crack the egg and add the vanilla extract. whisk together slightly with a fork.

12 Tbls (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, cold but soft. (20-30 sec. in the microwave will soften it)
1.5 cups packed (10.5oz) dark brown sugar

with a sturdy spoon, cream the sugar and butter in a large bowl. mix until it is a uniform creamy texture, then mix it a while longer. stir in the egg mixture, one half at a time, adding the second half after the first is completely integrated.

once mixed, stir in the flour mixture in four batches, waiting until the batter is completely mixed before adding more flour. After the flour is all added, stir in the oat mixture. It won’t appear to be able to all fit, but if you keep folding the batter, eventually you’ll get a uniform mixture.

Throw the batter in the fridge and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

These cookies should be made rather large, approximately 3 tablespoons, each. flatten each cookie into a puck-like shape and place on a cookie sheet. These can be baked on two cookie sheets at once. Bake for 6 minutes, then rotate the cookie sheets, moving the top sheet to the bottom, and vice versa. Then bake about 6 minutes more. Make sure not to overbake!

If you make these, let me know the results. I think I should make them again, ASAP, just to get some better pictures of them.

open /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/Eject.menu

or, if you want to use the finder, open a finder window, click cmd-shift-g and type

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/

hit enter, and then double-click the Eject icon.

sweet!

GET http://flickr.com/photos/tags/ | grep '/photos/tags/[a-z]' | cut -f4 -d/ | random -f - | head -1

note: the random command is something I’ve only found in FreeBSD. it could easily be replaced with a perl one-liner to shuffle.

this prints out a single, random, popular tag from flickr. used in combination with my perl script that picks a random picture based on tag, I can get some randomly awesome pictures:

slather -t `randomtag`

perhaps soon I’ll post slather.

1 large potato (peeled, boiled until barely done, diced. set aside for later)

2 pieces of bacon

(cook bacon slowly in cast iron skillet, eat or discard when done)

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
1 serrano chili, 2 jalapeno chilies (seeded and diced)
2 teaspoons kosher salt (or 1 teaspoon of table salt)

(cook on medium low in bacon grease until onions are soft)

1 lb chicken thigh meat (cut into 3/4″ cubes, removing fatty bits)

(add to vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally until chicken is no longer pink)

1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chopped green chilies
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp chili powder

(stir all of this into the skillet. bring up to a simmer, fold in potatoes, cook down any excess liquid)

2 tbsp minced fresh cilantro

(fold in cilantro, remove from heat)

medium flour tortillas
shortening

To make chimichangas: In my electric skillet I melted enough shortening to come up about 1/4-1/2″ in the pan. I set it for 350 degrees. any higher than that and Alton Brown says the shortening starts to break down and fill your house with a greasy smell. I heated up flour tortillas by wrapping them in foil and putting them in the oven, until they’re just soft.

Put a bit of the meat mixture into the tortilla, it was always less than I thought. I folded the sides in and rolled it up. then I carefully laid it in the hot shortening, with the seam side down. I let it fry until I could see the bottom edges nice and golden brown. then I turned it until all sides were brown and golden. I set them on a cooling rack while I made more. to rewarm them, I put the cooling rack in the oven.

These went great with beans and rice that Pat and Ana brought over, and the amazing verde soup that phil made, or the cauliflour with guacamole topping. But, if you don’t have all of that spectacular food, you may want to try just salsa or sour cream or guacamole. I’ll try to post pictures soon.

I’m excited to make them again. I’ve got a ton of filling left.

For the longest time the only chili I’ve known is my mother’s. and while it’s very good, it’s fairly tomato-ey and not very spicy. I’m a big fan of spicier and smokier chili and for a few years I’ve been trying recipes to try and find a new chili for myself. Last night I tried this allrecipes.com chili. I varied it a bit, and here’s what I came up with:

1 big onion, chopped.
4 cloves garlic, minced.
3 chile peppers, seeded, stemmed, chopped. (I used one poblano, one jalapeno, one serrano) set half aside for later.

(sweat these in some vegetable oil in a large heavy pot for a few minutes on low to medium heat)

1 lb ground beef. I think I used chuck.
1 lb top sirloin steak, trimmed of fat and cubed

(add this to onions and oil and mix and cook until the redness in the meat is gone. then drain most of the excess liquid off of the beef)

1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes
1 (12oz) can or bottle of dark beer. I used some trinity red from trader joe’s
2 teaspoons of espresso powder
2 (6oz) cans of tomato paste
1 (14oz) can of beef broth

(open all these cans and add them to the beef and onions. bring this up to a simmer)

1/4 cup brown sugar. (I actually used 1/2 cup, I think it was too sweet)
3-1/2 tablespoons of chili powder (mine is homemade from Alton Brown’s recipe)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon coriander

(feel free to throw these in as the mixture is coming up to a simmer)

2 (15oz) cans kidney beans. (I used a mix of dark and light red)
the other half of the chopped chiles.

(stir these in once it comes up to a simmer. then let simmer, covered, for 1 hour or more.)

1 (15oz) can of kidney beans

(stir in another can of kidney beans and simmer another 30-45minutes)

This chili was so smokey and sweet and spicy. and while I don’t normally like to cook so much from cans, I was in heaven. the original recipe can be found here. I made some slight modifications, which I’ve reflected above. and this isn’t exactly what I made, but it’s what modifications I will make the next time. it was so good I’m excited to go home soon and have some more.

2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

(beat eggs and vanilla together in a bowl, set aside)

2 bars of bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup of pecans

(chop the pecans and the chocolate and mix together in a bowl, set aside)

2-1/4 cups flour. (I used a mix of AP flour and some bread flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt

(I food processed the flour, soda and salt, to aerate and sift it)

3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar

(mixed the sugars to combine evenly)

2 sticks of butter (from fridge to microwave for 20-30 seconds, to just soften)

I mixed the butter into the sugar until it was nice and creamy, it took a while and my arms got really tired.

I added the egg mixture, in two batches, making sure I combined it fully between the two.

I slowly mixed in the flour, in at least 3 steps, making sure I got it all mixed together good before I added more. my right arm was dead by this point, but I soldiered on!

I stirred in the chocolate and nuts. the dough looked amazing. I scooped it on to the cookie sheets with a tea spoon, making them heaping and balling them together just a little bit with my hands.

I baked them for 10 to 12 minutes, turning the pans after 5 minutes to make up for hot spots in my oven. I let them cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes so that I could just pick them off and put them on the cooling racks without them falling apart. and I didn’t have to dirty a spatula.

damn, they sure are good.