Avocado Greek Goddess Dressing

This dressing is very easy to make and is tasty on all kinds of salads, especially ones that have some substance in the flavor department.  Try it on an arugula, fennel and grapefruit salad.  It would also be a nice accompaniment to shish kabobs, roast chicken, a burger, grilled shrimp, or a fish taco.

My mom asked me for this recipe, and I realized that I had adapted it from three or so other recipes online.  Guess I better write it down!

Ingredients  

• ½ C plain Greek yogurt

• ½ to 1 avocado

• 1 clove of garlic

• 1 big handful of cilantro—stems and all

• Pinch of salt and pepper

• 2 T lime juice

• 2 T red wine vinegar

• ¼ C water

• ½ C olive oil (I used the light olive oil so as not to overpower the flavors)

Directions

• Put everything except the olive oil into your blender or food processor. 

• Blend up.

• While blending, slowly add the olive oil.

• If too thick, add more yogurt, water or lime juice.

• Adjust the ingredients to your liking.  It should be fairly strong, especially if  you're going to put it with a meat.

A Yokatta! Super Bowl Sushi

Of all the crazy things I could have done for Super Bowl food this year, I ended up with sushi.  The driving factor was that I had a small but pristine piece of salmon from Number 1 Son's Alaska fishing job sitting in the fridge just begging to become gravlax or something else equally raw and enticing.  

Succumbing to the excesses of my kitchen efforts, I also acquired some very nice blue swimming crab meat (in a small tub at the meat counter. . . no lie!) and a couple lovely avocados.  Foraging through the veggie drawer revealed some nice scallions, fresh ginger, and cilantro.   And I have a lifetime supply of seaweed sheets--leftover from many years ago.  A yokatta! (oh good!  in Japanese).  Fortunately, seaweed sheets store well.  

I have never made sushi before (that I recall--despite the amazing amount of seaweed sheets I had accumulated), so I did some research.  Here are some good websites:

http://makemysushi.com/How-to-make-sushi/maki-roll.html

http://www.foogod.com/~alex/sushi/rice.html

Low-down on Sushi Rice:  Authentic Japanese sushi rice is the koshihikari variety, which is not shipped out of Japan.  When we get sushi in US restaurants, it is made with Calrose rice, a variety developed to meet the westerner's insatiable desire for sushi.  You should not use other rice varieties like basmati or jasmine or sticky rice. They will not work  The whole point behind sushi is the rice. 

Make your rice and add the vinegar and sugar to it.  Let it cool naturally, not in the fridge or it will turn out very gelatinous.  And, from what I can divine, sushi purists treat the rice like a god:  carefully tossing it with the sugar/vinegar and not using metal utensils.

One thing you will want is a real bamboo mat.  One of the websites above shows how to do this with a damp dish towel.  That sounds good, also.  But if you can get your mitts on a mat, so much the better.

Method:

--follow the recipes for cooking the rice (1 1/2  C rice to 2 C water).  After, add 1/4 C rice vinegar, 1 T sugar, 1 t salt (good to heat this vinegar solution up to ensure dilution).   Let cool, and only toss with wooden spoon.

--wrap your mat in plastic wrap.
--put the seaweed with the rough side up. This ensures that the rice sticks.
--use your hands, dunked in water, to grab and place the rice on the nori (seaweed)

--for a regular maki roll, leave 1/2 inch at top of sheet of seaweed uncovered. This is the part that is going to stick to your roll.

-- for an inside out roll (rice on the outside. . . think California roll), you will cover the entire seaweed square with rice, then turn upside down on the mat before putting in your fillings.

For both:
--put your ingredients into the middle.
--use the mat to roll up the stuff.
--roll into plastic and put in fridge until ready to serve.  Then cut:  first into halves, then into smaller pieces.  A standard seaweed sheet will make 8 slices.

Advice:
--spicy add-ins are great:  siracha mayonnaise, drops of wasabi, sliced jalapeno, cilantro, a couple dribs of teriyaki, etc.
--your inside ingredients should be pretty:  square slices of salmon or avocado, brightly colored sliced carrots or peppers, etc.  

Serving Essentials:
--wasabi
--soy/Tamari (my preferred) sauce
--pickled ginger (buy or make your own, see below)


Make your own pickled ginger:  since much manufactured ginger contains aspertame, you might as well make your own.  Peel a knob of ginger, slice thinly (by knife or mandoline). Immerse into a jar and cover with rice vinegar, a bit of salt, and a measure of sugar/honey, etc.  You'll want about twice the ration of vinegar to sugar.  Let set for days or a couple hours.  Serve on the side of the sushi as a palate cleanser.

Well, there you have it. Go forth, and may the sushi be with you. . . but not for a prolonged time. . .

Easy Scalloped Potatoes au Gratin

We had these potatoes recently when my family visited, and I realized that I'd never written the recipe down.  This is so simple.  The dish is rich and tasty, and it is a great dish to master for college students.  Bonus is that if you have leftovers, you can add them to a frittata  or just nosh on them the next day--if you end up with leftovers, that is.  :)  BTW, I prefer an equal mixture of half and half and milk for mine.  

I know, this is a bad picture, but you get the general idea.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs Yukon Gold or Russet potatoes, scrubbed and sliced to ¼ inch.  (Peel if unappealing. . . pun intended).  Do NOT rinse the sliced potatoes.  (Depending on the size of the potatoes, this could be about 5 medium sized potatoes.)
• 4 T butter
• 2-3 C milk or cream or half and half.  Do NOT use 2% or low fat.
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Grated nutmeg (a sprinkling)
• Crushed fresh or dried thyme (a sprinkling)
• ½ to ¾ C cheese of your choice (suggestions: gruyere, Romano, parmesan, gouda, white cheddar)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 325
• Butter a 1 quart dish with 2 T of the butter (reserve rest)
• Layer sliced potatoes into the dish in an artistic manner of your choosing.  You can do 2 layers if you want, but feel free to toss extras if you end up with your masterpiece.
• Pour milk/cream over mixture to come just to the top, but not to cover the potatoes.
• Dot with remaining butter
• Salt and pepper lightly
• Grate nutmeg and sprinkle with thyme
• Put into oven for 35 minutes, checking to see how the browning is going
• When it is just starting to color (30-40 minutes into the cooking), sprinkle with the cheese
• Continue to cook until it looks tasty. Poke with fork to ensure it is cooked through.  If you have to cook longer, that is just fine.
• Remove and let cool for 5 minutes before serving

Ella's Outlaw Kumquat Marmalade

I’ve never met Ella.  She is an in-law of my in-laws.  Does that make her an outlaw?

Regardless, she is the sweetest person, and she made it known on Facebook that she was in possession of a bodacious amount of kumquats at her home in Florida, just hanging on the tree waiting to drop off and rot.  So, social media being what it is, we made a pact for her to send citrus from Florida to Washington so that I could make some yummy marmalade . . . and I did.

Kumquats are a weird and wonderful kind of citrus.  They are small—about grape sized.  The ones Ella sent me were gonad sized fruits.  Humongous.  The rind is sweeter than the pulp.  In fact, the pulp is downright sour, and the seeds are really sour. Recipes I found recommended using the pulp and seeds (encased in netting) to infuse the marmalade so as to create natural pectin.

What I ought to disclose now—before you get too far down this road:

This is a multi-day process to make kumquat marmalade.

Don’t get into this unless you have two days to devote.

This makes a tart marmalade.  If you want it sweeter, add more sugar.

METHOD:  After much internet searching, recollections of botched kumquat experiences, and trial and error, I ended with this process:

Prepping: 

·        Cut off the stem end—be brutal.

·        Quarter the fruit.

·        Pull the segment off the peel.

·        Put pulp/segment into the reserve bowl.

·        Put peel into the keeper bowl.

·        Slice the peel into strip.

·        Put the pulp into a net bag or cheesecloth. Tie off. Put into a bowl to catch juice. 

·        Weigh the peels.

·        Add the same weight of sugar to the peels.

For these big kumquats, I quartered and then sectioned them.  For smaller ones, you can cut in half and turn inside out.

Resting:  stir peels and sugar. Let set overnight. Set pulp aside in separate bowl. 

(The pulp and seeds make the pectin.  If you save them, you will not need to add any manufactured pectin.)

Cooking:

·        The next day put the peel/sugar mixture into a big pot.  Start to cook. 

·        Add any juice from the pulp/segment net bag collected overnight.

·        Place the net bag (still enclosed) with pulp and seeds into the bubbling peel broth.

·        Simmer for about 30 minutes, then squeeze and remove the bag.

·        Simmer peel mix until it shows shimmering on cold plate.  Est. 30-60 minutes.

·        Test for pectin by dropping juice on a cold plate.  If it globs, then it is ready. 

·        Put into sterilized pint canning jars and process in water bath for 12 minutes (at sea level).  We are at 2,500 altitude, so I processed mine for 15 minutes.

Yummilicous marmalade all finished and ready for toast!

Wow!  What fantastic marmalade.  And just to show you how awesome I am, here's a picture of me and Flavor-Flav getting our timers out to make sure the marmalade is cooked just right!

Stopped on Chain Bridge on a Snowy Evening

Stopped on Chain Bridge on a Snowy Evening

After re-locating to the DC area from the California Sierras in the mid 1980s, we had an interesting experience with a small amount of snow.  I was teaching in Potomac, MD and living in Arlington, VA.  After work, I was to pick up my husband at George Washington University and head home.  On this day, my school was cancelled at 10 am, and everyone headed home.  Since it did not look like much weather to me and since I was to pick up hubby at 5 pm, I kept on grading papers.  At 4 pm I headed off in my trusty front wheel drive Hyundai.  There was less than 1 inch on the ground.  I recall having a vague  inclination to stop at the restroom prior to heading out, but really, this was promised to be no more than a 40 minute trip.  Well. . . I was wrong.  I could not get to GWU after 2 hours, so I headed home, confident that my Navy officer husband could navigate the metro and get home without me.  

I ended up on Chain Bridge around 8 pm. Now it was 4 hours since my identified bathroom break. Traffic did not move.. . . People ahead of me were observed shooting steamy streams out of windows or discreetly under doors.  The woods were a good 100 yards behind me--I was dead in the middle of the bridge.  I finally scrounged up a socket set from the trunk. And, yes, I peed in it.  I eased it out the door onto the bridge.  But. . . I had forgotten to take out the sockets!  quel dommage!  Several hours later. . . a steep hill and scenes from Dr. Zhivago.  Long story made short:  The sockets survived and hubby made it home through the sludge from metro to metro. But I think I had the greatest adventure of all.  

For anyone stranded on Chain Bridge. . . or anywhere else in the DC area tonight, I feel your pain.  

Stopped on Chain Bridge on a snowy evening

(S. Foster)

Whose choice was this I think I know.

I grew in landscapes filled with snow;

Where snow tires made space free and clear

Through forests forth to go. 

My little car must hang out here:

Those stalled without a driver near

Upon the Chain bridge and Potomac

The biggest snow storm of the year.

It purrs and perks amid the black.

A restroom is thing we lack.

The only vessel is a case

Of useless socket wrenches make.

The bridge is lonely, crowded space,

But I have time I have to race,

And hills to climb before home base

And evidence to still erase.