Pinterest Food

So I always go on Pinterest and see all these DELICIOUS looking dishes, and I really want to eat them! So I decided that this summer I am going to try to make as many as I can. The first one I made was an amazingly comforting cauliflower soup which was only with 5 ingredients, completely vegan, and surprisingly filling (and it’s just as gorgeous in real life as in the picture). Now, I am not a huge Martha Stewart fan. So to my disdain, the next dish I made is one of hers. I do have to say though, it was quite delish. It was poached eggs and asparagus on top of fettuccine. Then I did a small salad and some roasted tomatoes with some cheese and herbs on top. It was my first time poaching eggs, but it really wasn’t a big deal, I did break 2 though!

 

 

The Meal (please excuse the computer!)

 

 

So I guess I will be posting some more dishes that I make this summer! Maybe I will even try baking!! Okay, that’s being optimistic, but we shall see. I am really excited for what I am making this week: it’s going to be a Thai curry. Thai food is my FAVORITE. So I am very very very excited. I hope it is gooood.

 

Here is the recipe for the pasta if you like 🙂

 

Penn Food Summit

Hello Fellow Foodies!

Sorry it has been so long, I have desperately been waiting to post about the AMAZING weekend the Cornell Gourment Club at Upenn a couple weekends ago, but alas, school-work trumped my food writing. 😦

I am so excited to give you all an overview of the awesome events:

First of all, fittingly, we ate So. Much. Delicious. Food. We had an awesome dinner that was inspired from Native American foods as well as a breakfast of the most delicious bagels I have ever had and some really yummy pastries (including a millet muffin, which was wayyyy more delicious than it sounds).

One of the dishes from dinner

Yummy Yummy Millet Muffin

Apart from the eating, we started the weekend with some really good discussions from everything from food writing, to the restaurant industry, to celebrity chefs, to sustainable food. We also had some panelists with experience in each of those topics who taught us about their experiences. I definitely left the weekend with a LOT to think about.

Then (and I can’t contain myself), WE  MET DEB FROM SMITTENKITCHEN.COM!!!! (She was one of the panelists) I assure you, she is just as awesome in person! She is so humble and so personable. We heard her talk about how her blog came about and about her blog in general. She told us that she started cooking only once she got married, and that she has had to become more creative once she had her son! Below is a creeper shot of her (haha):

She’s all the way on the right

 

We ended the weekend with – wait for it – a food competition! Everyone was split into teams, given ingredients they must incorporate, sent to the grocery store, and given 1.5 hours to create a yummy dish. It was my first food competition, and it was soooo fun! Also, a Cornell team won 🙂

Picture of the winning dish

Peace and food

-T

 

Bread and Spreads!

Hi everyone! My name is Tejal (pronounced Tay-jul if you were curious), and I am going to be posting to the CGC blog on occasion.

I don’t cook as much as I would like, so I am in no way a food expert, but I like to cook when I can (though that does become a challenge at school), and I DEFINTIELY like to eat. Soooo, my posts will probably be more about food appreciation because who doesn’t appreciate food? 🙂

Last weekend was the joint Cornell Bread Club and Cornell Gourmet Club Bread and Spreads Party! There was amazing food, lots of people, and great conversation. It was (unfortunately) my first and only CGC event so far 😦 I hope to attend more events in the future, because this one was so fun! Below are some picture from the event:

Here’s to eating YUMMY food! 🙂

-T

 

Creme de Cornell Fall 2011

Get your taste buds ready! We now present to you the fall 2011 Crème de Cornell magazine! Please savor the deliciousness found within these tempting pages. May you find inspiration to cook, eat, and experience (and even grow your own) sumptuous cuisine.

cgc fall 2011

 

Some Pig

"The Three Little Pigs" at The Piggery

FOR THIS FARMERS-MARKET-STAND-TURNED-DELI, it is a surprise to step into a daffodil yellow, oak- floored establishment packed with customers along Route 13 in Ithaca. A colorfully chalked menu sign with mouth-watering menu options hangs above the counter. To the left, a black wall adorned with names of local farms tells where they sourced their meats, dairy, and produce. The neighboring hand-drawn map of a pig shows me exactly what a “hock” and a “butt” are (it’s not even close to the butt). Little pig ornaments pepper the counter top, from furry stuffed piglets to a piggy-handled whisk.
The bloody flanks I was expecting to find hanging from the ceiling are actually stored in a glass meat case in the back of the room. Amongst your typical charcuterie of sausages, beef patties, and shoulders are T-burg dogs, Boston butts, pâtés, lards, and even whole chickens. The Piggery will only offer what local farms can offer, so the selection of products available changes almost daily. Like the name of the restaurant, the dishes The Piggery have to offer are exactly what they say they are without much embellishment at all, but they defy expectations.
My friend and I quickly nab a table under the orange-tiled ceiling, armed with our coffee, hot cider, breakfast burrito, and “The Three Little Pigs” (a taco, hot dog, and slider). I start with the hot dog and go nuts with the condiments: ketchup with far more texture interest than the creepy smoothness of Heinz, Dijon mustard, sweet relish, and some amazing picked red onions with the perfect amount of vinegar. Yet, I quickly realize that there is absolutely no need to layer all of this stuff on; there is no artificial hot-doggy meatiness to cover up at all. On the contrary, if you can imagine what a real hot dog would taste like made from real quality pork, then this is it.
Next, the pulled pork slider. The pulled pork is moist and flavorful, spiced just enough to let the pork speak for itself. It is topped with cabbage slaw, which adds a beautiful purple color, crunch, and freshness to contrast the sumptuous meat. The mini-bun, with a nice egg shine on top, is simply the perfect carrier for these flavors and textures.
To complete “The Three Little Pigs” trilogy, there is the carnitas taco. Filled with pork, cabbage, carrots, and a delightfully tangy and zingy green sauce, this taco is the third standout in this meal. The simple yet delicious corn tortilla holds up perfectly beneath the mound of ingredients it carries. Think of your imaginary (or real) Mexican grandmother kneading together corn flour straight from the farm and water. Think of the heat from the burner as she toasts them, the authenticity of the whole process. That’s what this tasted like. And the best part? You can smell them on the pan as you wait in line.
Any breakfast burrito sold in the Ithaca area has some tough competition to live up to with famous competitors such Solaz at the Farmer’s Market and Mexeo in Collegetown. The Piggery’s version is packed full to the brim with their signature pulled pork, local black beans, and egg. As someone who likes a lot of stuff in my burrito like veggies, salsa, and even a nice helping of guacamole, this burrito was lacking in the area of salsa, but nevertheless it is quite an enjoyable burrito to wake up to in the morning.
I would like to argue that The Piggery is serving up some of the best cider in the world. Unlike that dark brown whipped cream-covered stuff popular these days, Indian Creek Farm’s cider is a light golden colored drink that tastes exactly like fresh apples. Refreshing, tart, and spiced ever so slightly, this is probably the best cider of my life.
The cooks at The Piggery prove their ability to let the best of ingredients just be themselves, pairing high quality meats cooked to perfection with simple yet creative complements. As a college student too cheap to buy her own meat and too afraid to over or underdo it, The Piggery is the perfect niche for my dose of delicious free-range protein. No frills, no fuss, reasonable prices, and environmentally friendly without being pretentious, The Piggery is an indulgent change of pace.

This is article was written by Iona Machado and will appear in the Crème de Cornell Fall 2011 magazine to be released DECEMBER 2nd, 2011. Look for the magazine at many locations around the Cornell Campus!

 

Welcome Back, Foodies!

Summer is drawing to an end, and its time to begin a new semester filled with culinary explorations. Stay tuned for delicious posts on all things gourmet;  cooking, tasting, restaurant-going, travel, and maybe even some poetry this year. Please read, comment, and enjoy!

If interested in joining our club, please attend our first meeting on Monday Sept. 12th at 5pm in 122 Rockefeller Hall. We hope to see you there! (Feel free to email med233@cornell.edu if you have any questions).

 

 

 

Ultimate Sandwich Recipe

© 2011 Francis & Lloyd

 

Easy Pasta Sauce(s)

Pasta is the best. It cooks quickly and simply, doesn’t need much to make it great, and is the medium for any number of wonderful sauces. I had a request from my most important taste-tester for a basic pasta sauce post, with one tomato and one oil-based recipe, so here goes. Both recipes have very few ingredients, so the quality of them is really important, particularly the tomatoes, olive oil, and most importantly the pasta. If you’re going simple, you might as well spend a little extra to make sure the dish is as good as it can be. And it can be really, really good. Also both sauces come together in the time it takes to cook the pasta and can be adapted to any situation or ingredient you might encounter.

Easy Pasta Sauce v.1: Olive Oil
Serves 1 hungry person, 20 minutes

1/2 pound pasta (preferably something a little interesting in shape)
2 Tbsp. of your best olive oil, extra virgin if you have it
2 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced or minced
Salt and pepper, freshly ground if possible
Parmesan cheese

1. Start your water boiling, salt it well (1 Tablespoon at least). When it’s boiling and the pasta’s in, pour the olive oil into a small sauce or frying pan and turn the heat to low. Add the sliced garlic. It should NOT FRY, seriously don’t let it start frying, you just want it to cook lightly.

2. When the pasta’s ready (keep it al dente), drain it and pour the drained pasta back into the pot you cooked it in. Pour the olive oil and garlic onto it while still hot and stir the whole mix. Plate it, add salt, pepper, parmesan to taste. That’s it.

•••

Easy Pasta Sauce v.2: Tomato
Serves 1 hungry person, 20 minutes

1/2 pound pasta (preferably something a little interesting in shape)
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes (with basil is good)
2 large cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper, freshly ground if possible
Parmesan cheese

1. Once the pasta’s in, put the tomatoes in a saucepan over medium heat. When it starts to simmer/boil put the garlic and seasonings in. Simmer for a few minutes to cook the garlic.

2. Drain the pasta, add the sauce, plate, top with parmesan. Not so bad, huh?

 

Hong Kong Hot Pot

Hot Pot Night in Hong Kong

“Sunday, you come to hot pot with me and my friends! Hong Kong style!”

Helen Shih-Chan is family of family of friends of my family (long story) who, along with her husband, is an overly generous Cantonese woman of about 60. I can never never refuse such an offer to eat with locals.  So off I’m am taken to a fluorescently-lit restaurant in what used to be the Walled City of Kowloon. I ignore the stares from the other patrons (as usual, I’m the only westerner there), and I quickly meet our fellow diners, the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Ng.

Upon arriving at the table, the waitresses install two simmering pots into the square table openings; one pot with water and quartered tomatoes, the other with a darker liquid and floating cilantro.

“No English here. I order,” Mr. Chan says to me as he checks off dishes on his paper sheet filled with Cantonese characters.

“Yes. She eat anything,” Helen assures him. (They had fed me duck feet and pig snout two days earlier.)

And soon enough, the dishes of ingredients start arriving: raw sliced beef, frozen meatballs, raw dumplings (similar to wontons in the States but a million times better), and various fish balls. And the cooking begins! Into the broth Mrs. Ng and Helen start dumping ingredients. Next come even more plates of raw dumplings, sliced fish, pigskin, squid, and other unrecognizables. And the chaos really begins! Steam is rising from the pots, arms and chopsticks are flying everywhere, dunking raw meat, passing plates, serving dumplings left and right, dipping cooked bites into the soy and chili sauce. Helen deposits steaming hot meats and fishes into my tiny bowl. “Its hot! Its hot! Don’t eat yet!”

After proper cooling, it is all delicious; especially the seafood dumplings and the meatballs. My bowl is filled over and over again since “no” isn’t a valid answer at this dinner table.

“Cow has four stomach. This is just one,” Mr. Chan tells me as he places a rubbery sting-ray looking item into my dish. “Its good!” he says.

No… It’s not.

Amidst this frenzy I start to wonder what this large untouched plastic bowl of lettuce and cabbage is doing to my right. “That’s for after,” Helen says. And sure enough when the numerous plates of meat are all devoured, into the pot goes all the vegetables along with rice noodles. I sit there skeptical as to how they will turn out: they are cooking them to death! But when the softened watercress and cabbage land in my bowl… Damn. They are the most flavorful greens my mouth has met! The flavor of all those boiled animals has hopped into that lettuce like I have never experienced. This order of operations makes sense after all.

Many Asian countries have communal hot pot dishes: shabu-shabu in Japan, jigae in Korea, suki in Thailand, and a hot pot of mostly lamb in Mongolia. They all have their own respective dipping sauces as well. According to the unbiased opinion of my local Hong Kong hosts, Hong Kong’s hot pot uses the greatest variety of  meats and ingredients and is supposedly all around the best tasting. Three weeks into my Hong Kong semester and this was certainly an exciting meal that I will never forget.

Cantonese lesson from a non-Cantonese speaker:

“ jan ho-may ”  =  that was delicious

 

Papa’s Mac and Cheese

It’s the ultimate comfort food. Butter, carbs, cheese, it’s sort of hard to go wrong with such a fantastic combination, but there’s a science to making a successful mac and cheese. I’ve only just begun a long and exciting journey towards perfection of this pillar of homestyle American cooking, but, I must confess, I cheated.

My grandfather has been a mac and cheese enthusiast for lifetimes longer than I have. “Papa’s making mac and cheese!” was an often repeated exclamation in my house and remains a cause for celebration. His recipe toes the line between gourmet and homey in just the way you hope it will, and for me sets the bar by which all others are judged.

When I first called him for the recipe he gave me amounts like “a little flour” and “a bunch of cheese.” Maybe the fact that I’m his descendent allows us to communicate in this way. Now these approximations are, in all fairness, the way he (and I in his footsteps) cooks, but a recipe they do not make. So I’ll try to quantify these measurements while still preserving the freeform spirit of the recipe, forgive me Papa.

Papa’s Mac and Cheese
1 hour, serves ~6

1. Cook 1.5 pounds penne, rigatoni, or other smallish tubular pasta until fully cooked but firm. Before draining reserve about 1 cup of the cooking water.

2. Melt 2T butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat, when fully melted add 1T flour and stir until the flour is incorporated and the texture is smooth. You now have a roux.

3. Gradually add 3/4 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring after each addition until the mixture is smooth and even.

4. Add, a handful at a time, 1 pound of shredded sharp cheddar (or more if you want it really cheesy), again stirring after each addition. While you’re waiting for the cheese to melt add some seasonings (mustard, salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg are pretty standard).

5. Once fully melted, combine the sauce with the pasta and mix until each piece is coated. Butter a large (13”x9” or so) baking dish and pour the pasta/cheese picture into the pan, spread it out to fill. Pour 1/2 cup or more of the reserved pasta water over the entire operation, depending on how moist it looks.

6. Top with breadcrumbs and/or more shredded cheese, bake at 400 for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden and crunchy. Let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes before serving.