fortification fridays -- spicy tuna rolls

I've been a big fan of spicy tuna rolls for many years. They drove me crazy until I figured out the secret ingredient: sriracha hot sauce, the Thai stuff you see on the tables at Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants. Some of the upscale sushi places use the traditional Japanese hot spice mix called togarashi (7-spice powder), but more often than not, the red stuff is sriracha. A couple of weeks ago, we ate at a Japanese restaurant in town that is rather out of the way, tucked into a strip mall between a Wal-Mart and a Goodwill. The sushi, surprisingly, was quite good. They had what they called a crunchy spicy tuna roll. Usually, I hate the fancy rolls because they are a mishmash of flavors, are either deep fried or brushed in teriyaki sauce or topped with Japanese mayonnaise, one of the foulest concoctions ever. But this crunchy roll was delish. The little crunchy bits of tempura batter were tiny and subtle, just adding a bit of texture. I've been craving them ever since.

If you would like to know how to make sushi rice, roll sushi rolls, learn sushi etiquette, or you’re just interested in the history of sushi, see this link.

Please don't put mayonnaise on sushi; some restaurants now skip a step and just glop some srirachi-flavored mayo on top of a tekka-maki or tuna roll. Gross.

Spicy tuna rolls

Serves: 4 with other sushi or appetizers
Kitchen Needs: rice cooker for rice, food processor

1/2 lb. Sashimi-grade tuna, raw
1 t. sriracha
1 t. sesame oil (you may also add some chili oil for extra spice)
1 t. soy sauce
4 green onions, white parts only, finely chopped
a few good shakes of white pepper
salt to taste
optional and delicious: 1 T. tobiko (flying fish roe, available fresh or frozen)

Cut tuna into 2-inch cubes for food processor. Add to food processor and pulse until chopped roughly. Place fish into bowl and mix with other ingredients. Taste for spiciness and salt. Serve in rolls with avocado or with slices of cucumber wrapped around a bit of spicy tuna mixture, secured by a toothpick.

(Image courtesy of someone on web -- I didn't record the URL, and I can't find it again :( . If you know where it's from, please let me know!)

que pasa at the reluctant casa

It's harvest time, and I'm in the process of canning dilly beans and green tomatoes, drying herbs, and slow-roasting cherry and plum tomatoes for freezing. We had a rough season in the Willamette Valley, I'll confess. Cold nights that really never broke 60 degrees for more than a few days, even in 90-degree heat spells, a late last frost, and a relatively cool summer. Made for some really unfriendly growing conditions. Still, I got a decent crop of tomatoes, some great paprika peppers (pictured, my new drying method) and an oddly happy bumper crop of tarragon!

Mr. Reluctant pulled in the watering hoses yesterday. If that's not the sign of the end of the season, I don't know what is.

We've done very little on our growing list of remodeling projects lately. I've been struggling to finish an article that took much longer to write than I thought it would, and Mr. R. has been engaged in finishing his own article and his book, and traveling. Plus, we've been entertaining quite a bit, and experimenting with the BBQ. Priorities, yanno.

I did manage to cut down the hateful wisteria next to our grapevines and buy replacement handles for the laundry room cabinets, recaulk the kitchen window, and buy more curtains and shades at Ikea. Mr. R. got a few quotes for the roof replacement and ordered replacement panels for the storm windows, and I bought exterior paint. Not so much to report, no?

Part of the delay is that I'll be going to southern California for about three months starting next week. I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging from there, since I won't have a home to remodel, even reluctantly, and I won't be cooking much for myself. I think that I'll probably be an occasional blogger for a while.

In other news, the turquoise WWII cottage down the street, it turns out, sold for $300K. Woo-hoo property values! They immediately put in a white picket fence around the front. I had my doubts, but it turned out rather cute.

Hope you're all having a great fall!

fortification fridays -- my gazpacho

Got too many tomatoes, cukes, and peppers? Then I've got a recipe for you!

This is an adaptation of an authentic gazpacho recipe from someone’s grandmother chef in Córdoba, Spain. I, of course,
messed it up and made it simpler. The main difference is that I really like thick, smooth, pureed gazpacho, but I also like chunks of veggies. So I put the soup in the food processor and then garnish each serving with a mini-salad. This soup is hearty, even though it is cold, so serve in small portions if you are using it as an appetizer. It’s better the next day. The quality of the vegetables is paramount in this recipe.

My Gazpacho

Serves: 6
Kitchen Needs: Just a food processor or blender

2 pounds large garden tomatoes (this recipe won’t work with winter tomatoes)
2 large red bell peppers
6 pickling cucumbers, unpeeled, or 2 peeled garden slicer cucumbers
2 large garlic cloves
2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar, or substitute 1 T. good red wine vinegar and 1 T. good balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 baguette, day-old, cubed
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh tarragon leaves
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Place bread cubes in small bowl and cover with water. Allow to soak for at least 10 minutes.

Roast tomatoes and bell peppers. You can do this in a few ways. I generally just use metal tongs and my gas stove burner turned up on high. You can place the peppers directly on top of the burner grate, and turn them every minute or so, until they are charred on all sides. You MUST watch them carefully. The tomatoes are more delicate, but you can do the same process; I usually roast them just until they are charred in places but still raw inside.

Another way to roast the vegetables is to slick a cookie sheet with oil, then roast them at 425 degrees, turning frequently, until they are charred. It’s best to refer to a cookbook for this method if you are unsure of the process.

Let peppers rest and steam in a brown paper bag or covered dish while you chop the tomatoes and cucumbers. I don’t bother slipping the skin off the tomatoes, but you can if you like. Add tomatoes and juice to large bowl.

Chop cucumbers finely; add to HALF to bowl with salt and pepper, HALF to small bowl to reserve as garnish. Finely chop garlic and stir into tomato mixture with cucumbers, tarragon, vinegar, and oil.

Carefully slit the peppers and pour the juice into the bowl. Peel the charred skin off the peppers and remove the seeds, stem and ribs. You may rinse off the pepper, but it will remove some of the smoky remnants. Chop peppers finely and add HALF to bowl, HALF to another small bowl to reserve as garnish.

Drain bread, without squeezing out excess liquid. Mix into bowl with rest of ingredients.

Let mixture sit for a couple of hours out on the counter, or, if you’d prefer, four to eight hours in the refrigerator, to let flavors meld. Leave a couple of hours before serving, because you will need to puree the soup and chill it again.

In a food processor purée mixture, in batches if necessary, and return to bowl. Chill gazpacho, covered, for an hour or so.

Serve with reserved cucumber and roasted red pepper. You may also garnish with chopped bell pepper, a tiny bit of chopped jalapeno, chopped hard boiled eggs, avocado, and freshly made croutons, if you are adept at such things. Maybe not authentic, but delicious.

fortification fridays -- take my zucchini, please bread

It's that time again. Everyone in the continental U.S. is overrun with zucchini. Everyone, that is, except me. My exotic varieties didn't turn out at all! So I was one of the few people around actually LOOKING to take your zucchini, please.*

Last year, with my bounty crop, I thought I'd perfect zucchini bread. A dozen or so loaves later, this recipe comes pretty close. I've been through internet recipes, my great-aunt's recipes, and even a granola zucchini cookbook written by Oregon mountaineer commune-ists. Based on the famous Sunset magazine zucchini bread recipe of '76, then tortured a bit and doctored for less sugar and oil and the removal of such blasphemies as canned pineapple, le voilà. This makes a moist, non-oily, hearty bread.

Take My Zucchini, Please Bread

A.
4 eggs
2 c. sugar (add up to 1/2 cup more if you want it sweeter -- the texture will change a bit)
2/3 c. veg. oil
2 t. vanilla

B.
3 c. (packed) shredded zucchini with peel. If you have a monster zucchini, core it to remove the seeds.
1/3 c. milk
2 t. lemon zest

C.
1 1/2 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. steel cut oats
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 t. nutmeg
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. ground allspice

D.
1 c. chopped walnuts
OPTIONAL: 3/4 c. raisins and/or 1 grated carrot

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat ingredients in A together until well-combined. Mix in B. In a separate bowl, combine ingredients in C. Just before pouring batter into greased, floured** loaf pans (2 large or 3 medium -- batter should fill pan a bit over half full), add D. To be fancy, add some oats, crystal/turbinado sugar, or a few nuts on top. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until wooden stick comes out clean. You will also see loaf slightly separating from the pan around edges. Invert pan and cool on rack. Good hot, cold, or in between. Good with butter. Freezes well.

*For a large garden zucchini, you will be able to make six or more loaves, so plan accordingly. You *can* refrigerate shredded zucchini overnight and even freeze it, but I found the texture of the bread really suffered with frozen, thawed zucchini shreds. It's much better to bake the bread, then freeze the loaf.

**I sometimes use the Pam oil/flour spray. It really doesn't work well; the bread rises unevenly and not so high as with the traditional method. But when you're baking a dozen loaves in the heat of the summer, reach for the Pam. I forgive you.

kitchen painting done!

And it only took me, what, nine months? The whole kitchen had to be scrubbed down several times and entirely primed. Thank god for Kilz. I had to scrape yet another coat of scum off the ceiling and do more patching and smoothing and cursing for three days this week. Then, I moved out the refrigerator and had to deal with the crap job of mudding the contractor did, scrape off some PO goo on a cabinet that I had missed earlier, and wipe down the oil slick that is still present on the walls near the stove. The spaghetti/soy soyce explosion is long gone, but the oil remains. Sigh.


But it's done. Done, I tell you. The second picture is the 'before' shot, complete with apple border. It doesn't look nearly as bad as it was. The light is too good, like the high school pictures of the ugly girls that were fuzzed over for a romantic feel, they insisted, but it was just really for the pitted skin and mousy hair. You're just going to have to believe me.

Now we just need our chimney hood, a new window over the sink, and a new dishwasher and refrigerator. Donations are being accepted.

fortification fridays -- swings both ways potato carrot salad

Some people are color blind. I am potato salad blind. I don't care for mayonnaise, I'll confess, and I'm not a big fan of boiled potatoes (or any mushy, bland food). My husband couldn't be different, so he is my guide to whether a potato salad is good. I've been trying for years to make a decent potato salad. My favorites are the vinegar-based ones -- I love the German-style potato salad with hot, waxy potatoes in a warm, sweet and sour vinegar-based dressing studded with pieces of bacon -- but I keep trying to make a "normal" American-style cold potato salad that we both like.

The other day, I was faced with a sudden need for a potluck dish, and my larder held only potatoes and a bunch of beautifully fresh, small, sweet, reddish carrots from the farmer's market. I thought about making a classic French carottes rapées salad, grated carrots with a vinegar and oil dressing, but I was afraid it would be too small an offering for the crowd. After finding this delicious, unorthodox recipe for carottes rapées from the stellar food blog Chocolate and Zucchini, I realized I could add potatoes to a grated carrot salad, and furthermore, I could create a potato salad that would be flexible with regards to the mayo. It could hold its own as an acid-dressing (in this case, lemon) salad, and it could be sweetened and thickened up with mayonnaise, as well. You could even make two versions at once, one with and one without mayo! The grated carrots make this salad a pretty color, and they even add some nutrition value, as they replace some of the potatoes. The best thing? Mr. Reluctant gave this his potato salad stamp of approval. It was a big hit at the potluck, too.

Swings Both Ways Potato Carrot Salad

Serves: 8-10 as a side dish
Kitchen Needs: Range or one burner to boil water

4 large red-skinned potatoes
6 medium-sized fresh carrots (the best quality you can find, preferably homegrown, farmer's market, and/or organic)
1 lemon
a few green onions
big handful of parsley, chopped
1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced and chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 T dijon mustard
up to 1/2 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper

Peel potatoes and place immediately in pot of cold, salted water. Bring to a boil and cook until pierced easily with a knife. When cooked through, remove and cube into 2-inch sized chunks, then add to the following.

While potatoes are cooking, peel and grate carrots (ok to use food processor attachment). Add juice of one lemon (can add zest, too, if you're feeling inspired), chopped green onions and parsley, chopped onion, red pepper, and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. You may adjust the tanginess by adding more lemon or white wine vinegar, if necessary. Add some or all of the mayonnaise. Chill for at least an hour. This salad improves after several hours.

Variation: for a Middle Eastern spicy version, add some harissa, ajvar, and/or hot sauce.

storm windows worth saving?

Mr. Reluctant requests advice about storm windows:

Although the mechanical mechanisms
have failed/been removed/broken in
all my wooden double hung windows --
alas, *not* ropes and pulleys, but
some other one I cannot figure out --
the windows are in fair shape. The
frames and sills seem fine, the sashes
are a bit beat up. But because the
mechanicals are failed, they don't
stay up without support. That is the
main problem. I think restoring
them would take too much time, and
probably I wouldn't even be able to
find suitable parts.

I like wooden double hung windows, and I can't
for the life of me imagine replacing them
with vinyl. Theses windows have lasted
for 60 years, and could last still many more
years -- how long will vinyl windows
last -- maybe 10? At the most 20?
It just doesn't make sense. Plus they look
hideous and are environmentally
unfriendly.

One option: replace with Marvin tilt-pac
sash replacements. Probably costly, but
could put on the list of long term projects.

In the short term: what to do about the
(double track) storm windows. Having the storms,
provided they weren't missing panels and other
essentials, doubles the energy efficiency of
the windows, and also protects the sills from
water. But the ones we have were only of modest
quality, and are now quite broken down. I
have looked high and low for replacement
parts for them (e.g. the tracks) but cannot
locate any. I am having panels made for
the ones that are missing entire
panels! But perhaps these storms in the
shape they are currently in are doing more
harm than good: they aren't air-tight, and
so moisture gets in and is trapped, causing
mildew, etc.

My questions:

(1) Does anybody know where double/triple
track storm windows are sold in the
Willamette Valley? I have gone to several
places and they basically just try to sell
me new vinyl windows.

(2) Is it worth it to buy new storms?

--Mr. R

roof color

Why in the world would you choose this color for a roof? It relegates a house to an eternity of browns. I keep trying to convince myself it is terra cotta colored, but in the sunshine, it's as brown as dirt. It just KILLS me that we have to spend money to keep it this color, since we're only due to replace the roof over the small addition on the side of the cottage. And that sets off feelings of hatred toward the POs, who didn't replace the small addition when they redid the other parts of the roof, those cheap bastards.

I'm planning to paint the cottage a dijon mustard color. Will it look awful with the roof?

in ur tree, hangin wif mah homiez

The county fair is in town, which means it is almost in my backyard! We live just a few blocks from the fairgrounds, and we were a bit worried about the noise from the outdoor concerts they hold each year about this time. Last year, we were serenaded with the stylings of Styx on our porch at the old place (domo arigato, free-o concerto), and since that house was five or six blocks farther away from the fair, we were apprehensive.

Turns out the music is only slightly more noticable, and we couldn't even hear it when we shut the door. I did wave an imaginary candle in the air in my yard during REO Speedwagon's "I'm Gonna Keep on Lovin' You," though. We're not close enough to the fair to be affected by parked-up streets or even people walking by, so there was just about no impact.

I say "just about" because we did have some visitors. The carnies parked up the fields behind the fair buildings (on our side of the fairgrounds). A creek runs through those fields, and they are home to lots of critters, who were suddenly displaced. On one night, we not only had a visit from a 'possum, but a family of four raccoons moved in and slept all day in our tree. I asked them politely to vacate the premises, and I got nothing but 'tude:

I believe this is raccoon for "talk to the hand."

They said they were friends of Trevor Chang, our resident and possibly departed raccoon, and our elm tree made for an excellent one-bedroom apartment.

Next year, I'm charging rent.

fortification fridays -- molten tomatoes

This is a BBQ recipe invented by my dad and modified by me. It's messy, sticky sweet, and oozy, so it's not really fancy cocktail food, but who wants fancy cocktail food in the dog days of summer? His recipe is terrific, even with the parmesan in the green can, which we use when we're camping and don't feel like grating cheese, but it's even better with parmesano reggiano. It's even good with sub-par tomatoes. You can omit the butter and red pepper flakes, but they do add an important dimension of flavor. It's critical to use good-quality foil so the boats don't fall apart. Lots of liquid will be inside the packet. What's particularly nice is that these tomatoes go well with any kind of meat, and their juiciness helps dry cuts like chicken breasts.


Molten Tomatoes

Serves: 2-4 (one or two tomatoes per person)
Kitchen needs: None! (just a BBQ grill)

Aluminum foil
4 medium-sized, perfectly ripe, round, meaty tomatoes
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (fresh is best)
1 T. butter, cubed into four pieces
1-2 T. honey
salt and freshly ground pepper
red pepper flakes

Make foil packet: Using a wide bowl, mold the foil to the bowl, leaving plenty up top to seal the packet. The bowl will provide shape and structure, as well as assist in moving the tomatoes to the grill.

Slice tops off tomatoes and score tomatoes, cutting a checkerboard pattern about halfway down (don't cut through bottom). Place tomatoes in foil packet. Sprinkle tomatoes with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste, then add about 1/2 t. honey on top of each tomato. Mound grated parmesan cheese on top of each tomato about 1 inch high, then place pat of butter on each mound. Seal foil packet and grill over medium fire, enough to carmelize the bottom but not enough to burn, for about 30 minutes. Serve with bread.

Variations:

The picture above is a variation using yellow plum tomatoes from my garden that are a bit too mealy to eat out-of-hand. You can easily use roma tomatoes, halved (allow for a few more per person). I added thinly sliced red peppers and basil before grilling. Probably better to add the basil after grilling, since it turned brown.


This picture is a variation adding ground pork to the stuffing (and, I'll confess, broiling it in the oven). Did I mention how much I love these tomatoes?

bachelor furniture makes a comeback

One of the things I liked best about living apart from Mr. Reluctant for three years due to our school/work -- actually, maybe THE thing I liked best -- was the removal and banishment of bachelor furniture from my premises. We joked about it, as many couples do, but I loved having a cozy little apartment with cool shabby-chic vintage furniture, studded with an antique or two.

It's not that I insist on new, beautiful things. Much of my furniture is inherited or culled from the dump and garage sales. In fact, the only new furniture I've had is my bed (long since reinforced with bolts and 2x4s -- see below), some Ikea bookshelves, and my couch. My husband is one of those keep-it-till-it-falls apart types, plus he has the maddening habit of buying ugly stuff built like a brick shithouse and then reinforcing it so it will never, ever, ever fall apart. He loves decor that is solid, thick, squat, square -- veritably Romanesque. If it were up to him, we'd be living in a crypt. He sees no need in replacing items that are still "working," even if they are an assault to the eyes. Furthermore, he insists that we keep the "temporary" furniture I bought when I graduated from college and had my first apartment. There is enough of the crap that it completely furnished his entire apartment in Utah. And my plan backfired: he became intimately reacquainted with his beloved pieces, and realized how much he missed his old friends.

So when the three-year chic furniture holiday ended, there they were, the bachelors, knocking on my door.

I've been working on him gently, trying to get him to move the worst pieces -- NOT THROW THEM AWAY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!! -- into the storage room in the back of the house. The 100-lb. tar-paper and spitwood "TV stand," for example, is now storing tarps and a toolbox. One of the blonde Scan-ish dinette tables makes a fine place to organize caulk and paintbrushes.

But the thing I hate more than anything -- and something I was party to buying, unfortunately -- is his giagantic, industrial, metal, circa 1980 desk. It weighs about 3,000 lbs., has a fake woodgrain top, two tiny drawers that can only fit pens, is painted black around the sides and has shiny stainless steel legs. I don't know what I was thinking when we were looking at desks in Connecticut at a used office furniture place and agreed to the purchase.

Oh yes, wait, I do. I remember saying, "that will make a great workshop table when we move into a real house!"

I tried, last night, to make my move. His other desk, an old oak teacher's desk salvaged from the University of California furniture graveyard, is not that bad. My first furniture refinish job was a similar desk, and I've been yearning to redo the top, but it's ok since it has a modicum of style. It's been sitting in our living room since we moved in, because the movers didn't want to struggle with it to put it back in the bedroom wing.

I thought: it's time. He'll have a nice desk, our guests who stay in his study/guest room won't have their eyes burned out in ugliness, and we'll have a nice workshop table in the back room.

Mr. R. thought it was a fantastic idea. We took off the top of the oak desk and wriggled it into his study.

"OK," sez I, "how do you want to move the metal desk?"

"Move?" sez he. "Are you kidding me? Now I can finally have TWO desks in a row for even more workspace! This is great!"

Outmaneuvered once again. The horror.

let there be light (and storms, almost)

Isn't this the prettiest thing in the whole world? Well, it is in mine. Installation was more complicated than we thought, so we had the neighbor help us install our new porch light. I love the fact that it was so easy for him that he chatted throughout the process. If only we had skillz; if only we had toolz.

Not so pretty, but coming along nicely is the storm window renovation. Although we have been scoffed at by the home renovation center salesmen and poopooed by the internet wizards, we are proceeding with replacing screens and glass, and fixing up the plastic. No, we are not going to get vinyl windows. We'll suffer the loss of heat (we did the ol' plastic sheeting with a blow dryer last winter, and it worked fine). We like the old-school look of the aluminum storm windows, and our nice old wood windows, and we simply can't afford to replace them with something that is either (a) totally prohibitively expensive (wood); or (b) ugly and cheap-looking that will only last 10 years, if that (vinyl). Perhaps we'll revisit this idea next spring, but we are amazed by how well the windows held up even with the broken and messed-up storms, so we are pretty sure that with fixing them and properly installing them, they'll be ok.

fortification fridays - the best chicken kebabs ever

This one is so easy it's almost unfair how delicious it is. I adapted this recipe from one in a Persian cookbook, and it's been a staple in our house ever since. Even onion-haters like this chicken, since there are no tell-tale onion bits, and the flavor of the onion cooks away into something subtle and aromatic. Another strange and wonderful transformation is the color -- the chicken stays snowy white and picks up some nice charred bits from the grill.

The Best Chicken Kebabs Ever

Serves: 2, because we can't stop eating them
Kitchen Needs: Grill outside!

4 large chicken breasts (that's two double-sided ones detached), cubed into 2-inch cubes for kebabs
one medium onion, ground in a food processor (NOT chopped; you need it pulverized)
one lemon, juiced
salt and pepper to taste

In a gallon-sized ziploc bag, add all ingredients. Marinate for at least a couple of hours. Before grilling, put chicken cubes on kebab skewers (I use the simple flat metal ones, but you could use soaked bamboo ones). Mound marinade on top. Be careful not to overcook, since you are still dealing with chicken breast, even though the marinade tenderizes the meat.

Serve with rice pilaf and a moist salad, such as the Jerusalem salad here, or a simple tomato salad. You can add a little Middle Eastern sumac powder or za'atar before serving, but I rarely bother.

stormy weather

We got the bid on the roof -- more than we thought, not that we're surprised. It's apparently the best roofing contractor in town. The thing that kills me is that it's just a bit more to get nicer shingles (we have the standard craptastic 3-tab in a yucky color) but since we're only doing a small part of the roof, we have to match the old kind. We talked to the contractor about having a mismatched roof, and he said it would be hard to tell from the street, the way our house is positioned. Good point, but my real estate guru (hi mom) said by no means should we turn our roof into a crazy quilt.

I've been deeply engaged in cleaning projects, and Mr. Reluctant has been doing exterior projects. He has been dismantling our storm windows to repair and replace what he can. Turns out most are damaged in some minor way, and two are missing screens and two more the sliding glass panel that covers the screens.

fortification fridays - panzanella variations

Summer is magic. Supper can be thrown together with what you find in the garden (or farmer's market), olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Sometimes even less. If you are like me, your wonderful husband is caught up in the thrill of the grill, and he makes the entree every night. I'd be happy with grilled vegetables every day, but he makes scallops, fish, shrimp kebabs, bulgogi, pork ribs, chicken wings, yogurt chicken breasts...you get the picture.

I am in charge of the side dishes. This one is famous -- surely you've made it -- an Italian classic, panzanella. It's a Tuscan salad made of day-old bread, tomatoes, thinly sliced onion, and olive oil, plus a few herbs if you have them. To me, it's the essence of summer, since I can always leave a half-loaf of bread on the counter overnight, and the garden bears tomatoes and basil, plus any number of veggies I throw in to make variations. It takes very little time to make and is hearty enough for a main course. It's fine left over for the next day's lunch, too. In short, it's perfect for the hot, tired remodeler. Some people get very fussy about the "authentic" panzanella, but my thought is that if it tastes good with bread and tomato, it will make a good panzanella. It's too hot to argue about such things.

By the way, I wanted to thank the few people who actually make these recipes and comment on them. If you run into problems with the recipes, would you let me know? I'd love to perfect them, and appreciate your interest in my cooking.

Panzella (and variations)

Serves: 4 for a light summer supper
Kitchen Needs: None (ahhh!)

1/2-3/4 loaf of crusty Italian bread, day-old
1/4 cup water or 1/2 cup tomato juice (I use liquid from my homemade canned tomatoes)
2-3 large, perfectly ripe, delicious tomatoes
1/4 very thinly sliced medium-sized red onion (or use a Walla Walla if you're in the Pacific Northwest)
a handful of basil
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (which should never be called EVOO because food doesn't need nicknames)
1 T. good red wine vinegar
salt and freshly ground pepper

Cube the bread into 1-inch square cubes (or tear it in little pieces). If your bread isn't day old, toast the cubes to dry it out a bit. Sprinkle the water or tomato juice on top, mix well, and let sit for about 30 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, onion, basil, vineagar, olive oil, salt and pepper (to taste). Let salad sit for 30 more minutes on the counter before serving. (The picture is my salad just before I mixed it and let sit for this final 30 minutes.) The bread will soak up the juices, crumble, add a texture to the salad that's almost like couscous. Serve with a bit more olive oil drizzled on top and a few grindings of pepper.

And the variations:

- Add cucumber or celery;

- Add 1 T. capers, 2 smashed and chopped anchovies, hot pepper to taste, a minced clove of garlic;

- Add red, yellow and green peppers, and parsley;

- Add cucumber and dill (instead of basil);

- Add Italian import tunafish and capers;

- Add celery, Old Bay (instead of basil) and crab meat.

birthday present!

Lookee what I got for my birthday! All my dreams have come true. It's one of the only interesting-yet-simple modern porch flush-mount porch lights out there for a halfway decent price. I like the entire Hollywood Hills collection, especially the pendants.

Having searched to no avail in our local lighting stores, I purchased the porch light online. I chose Bellacor.com, which had mixed reviews and a longer wait time than other comparable merchants, but it doesn't have a ridiculous 25% restocking fee like most of the other lighting stores online, and there was free shipping via UPS.

It's too late now, but I'm curious -- have you purchased lighting products online, and if so, where? Would you recommend the vendor?

And...while I'm shopping...isn't this Westinghouse garage pendant lamp cute? Too bad I don't have a garage. The whole line of garage lights is adorable, and the price is almost too cheap to be good.

battery lanterns rule

And while I've still got camping on the brain, may I recommend one camping item that is excellent for house projects? No, not a hatchet. It's a Coleman battery-operated camping lantern. The light is brighter than LEDs, and it works well sitting in a dark corner or under the sink. We use ours all the time.

the roof, the roof, the roof

...needs replacing! Well, one part of it anyway. We have a rubber membrane over the flat porch area and a roof that is fine over the main section of the house, but an older roof over the "bonus room" addition. Because no, we wouldn't want our junk, boxes, and the fantastic industrial, stained, mislaid carpet ruined. You can see the roof and said carpet in these very unflattering shots of the back of our house.

Mr. Reluctant called for an estimate appointment today. Before we moved in, we had a quote to fix a slightly sagging beam and the shingles replaced for a bit under $1K, I believe it was, and the sellers duly knocked that off the price. Who knows if that was accurate, though. Needless to say, I am less than enthused about spending the money we could be using for an oven hood/venting the kitchen to redo the roof over the part of the house I like the least. That's how it goes, though, right?

what the internets don't teach u about disposals

Just before I left to meet Mr. Reluctant in Utah for my camping trip, my garbage disposal suddenly stopped working. Being alone and mechanically inept, I searched for friends to fix it in the few hours I had before my flight took off. No such luck. I then turned to the internet, a screwdriver, and trepidation. I hit the reset button repeatedly, turned off the breaker, removed particles of broken china and pieces of bok choy, fiddled with the chopper and the shaft, hit the reset button a few more times, switched on and off the breaker again, just in case, and cursed it. Still nothing. So I finished canning my brandied cherries and left. It sat, broken and pregnant with a moldering cherry, for the week.

As I've mentioned before, I have the best neighbor in the world. He's a commercial electrician by trade, a handyman and a (mostly) organic gardener. He came over yesterday and took a look at the disposal. Turns out the internet told me everything I needed to know about the mechanics of the thing, but not the electrical system. A small panel underneath the device revealed that one of the wires had been shaken loose. That was it. He rehooked the wires and we saved a hundred bucks.

fortification fridays - i really like your peaches fruit salad

It's a fruit salad. It's an aphrodisiac. Does summer get any better than this?

I invented this fruit salad after reading a chapter in Iwan Bloch's Sex Life in England (1934) entitled "Curious Sexual Instruments." Bloch was an old-school German sexologist -- indeed, he is credited for being one of the founders of that branch of study -- who wrote comprehensive books on large chunks of sexual life, including a biography of the Marquis de Sade and books on prostitution, erotic literature, and sexual odors. In "Curious Sexual Instruments," we find not only what you would expect, but also a few paragraphs on aphrodisiacs identified by experts. A certain M. Venette, author of De la Generation de l'Homme ou Tableau de l'Amour Conjugal singles out foods such as egg whites, "sweet strong wine," and milk. Another gentleman named Ryan adds to the list fish, turtles, oysters, crabs, lobsters, eggs, artichokes, truffles, mushrooms, celery, cocoa, onions, cinnamon, pepper, apricots, strawberries and peaches. Bloch's third source, the pornographic novel The Amatory Experience of a Surgeon (1881), is perhaps the least credible of the lot, but I believe everyone should try once what it recommends: making your move on the ladies with a cinnamon-covered hand.

Or you could try this fruit salad instead. Enjoy it with some of the other ingredients on the list: begin with raw oysters and chilled artichokes in a truffle mayonnaise, then tuck into a bouillabaisse of fish, shellfish, celery and onions, perhaps.

Whatever you do, save some room for dessert, because this is the best fruit salad I've ever tasted. If they don't like your peaches after this concoction, heaven help you.

I Really Like Your Peaches Fruit Salad

2 ripe peaches, cubed
2 ripe apricots (or dried ones, left to soak in water until plump), cubed
strawberries in some form, either fresh or frozen and chopped, or a scoop of homemade strawberry preserves or syrup
a few shakes of cinnamon
a few grinds of black pepper
2 T. "strong, sweet wine" such as Port, Madeira, or an ice wine
1 pint whipping cream

Mix together all ingredients but the whipping cream. Let macerate for at least 30 minutes. Adjust sweetening by adding a bit more Port, if necessary.

While fruit is macerating, whip cream until very stiff, even lumpy, and add a bit of sugar while whipping. An alternative is to use slightly sweetened ricotta or crème fraiche. Serve in individual bowls with a dollop of whipped cream on top and a drizzle of Port.

vacationing and the remodeler

Why is it I can't seem to escape paint? We just returned from our camping trip. We went to Idaho and made a day stop in Yellowstone. We spent a large part of the day driving, as one is wont to do in Yellowstone, being grumpily caught in several traffic jams caused by people in SUVs gawking at, say, a moose, on the side of the road.

You ain't never seen a bunch of fools until you've seen grown men climbing through underbrush at the side of the road to videotape a moose standing in mud.





Nevertheless, Yellowstone is not Disneyland, and even with the crowds, there is indeed a reason why it was our nation's first national park. Most of the park is inside a caldera of an old volcano, and the ground is unstable, shooting up steam and geysers, pooling boiling-hot water in springs all over the park. One can see waterfalls caused by lava flows and their damage to underlying rock, the earth stripped bare and cut apart into layers, and impossible lakes and plains and flowers in the middle of it all.

But back to remodeling. Nature has some pretty fantastic color combinations. Check 'em out. Blues and oranges, whodathunk it?

fortification fridays - brandied sweet-n-sour cherries

The New York Times published a recipe for brandied cherries last week, but it was based on sweet cherries. I'm after the holy grail, sour or pie cherries, those fragile ruby beauties that last for only a few days off the tree, and only a few weeks in the market. I threw together this recipe just before leaving for my Evel Knievel Tribute Road Trip with Mr. Reluctant. See you in a week or so!

Based on a recipe for something wonderful called Cherry Bounce, which uses vodka and wild cherries that grow in Louisiana instead of brandy and the mix of sweet and sour cherries I used below, my recipe makes as many brandied cherries as you like. Freeze the rest of the sour cherries you've been able to score with a little sugar to use for pies and cherry soup later in the summer.

Brandied Sweet-n-Sour Cherries

Sterilize two or more quart jars. Buy sour cherries and a few dark cherries, for pretty contrast. Wash cherries well and discard blemished cherries. They don't last long, so use them soon after purchase. Remove the stems but don't bother to pit cherries. The pits add a slightly almondy flavor to the liqueur.

Layer cherries with granulated sugar to cover each layer. Cover with a decent-quality brandy. Store in a dark place for a month. Shake every few days in the first couple of weeks to dissolve sugar and aid maceration. Enjoy over ice cream, use to fortify sangria, add to fondue, sip as a cordial or use as maraschino cherries in Manhattans and the like. That's all, folks!

our first tomato

It was sweet and delicious. I shared it with Sparerib. Happy Bastille Day!

fortification fridays - mound o' green beans

This is my favorite method of cooking green beans. It is especially good with summer beans, and it's based on the Chinese dry-fried string bean recipe you see in Szechuan restaurants. The secret is the initial cooking over high heat. The burned spots add character and a smoky taste. You can sex up these beans by adding pieces of ham or bbq pork, cabbage pickles, garlic, or even a little ground chicken or pork, but I like them plain.

Mound o' green beans

Serves: As many as you like
Kitchen needs: One hot burner

1 lb. or more fresh green beans, ends snapped off
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 t. vegetable oil
1 t. sesame oil
1 t. la yu (hot oil)
5-6 szechuan peppercorns, or a bunch of fresh-ground pepper
kosher salt

Heat a large wok over very high heat. Wash and trim green beans. WIthout adding oil, place green beans in hot pan and let them burn a little bit in spots, turning every 2 minutes or so, until they look wilted. Turn down heat to medium, add onion, oil, and pepper. Continue to cook until beans are wrinkly and soft but still dark green, then add salt (more than you think you'll need) at end of cooking. Mound up on a platter and let people eat with fingers.

all i want for my birthday

...is a new porch light. Well, ok, if you bought me a dining room chandelier, I wouldn't complain. And a few guys to powerwash and paint the exterior of my house. And, um, that kitchen vent? And new cabinets for the kitchen and a fig tree and a carport and a patio and a garden retaining wall and a new bathroom.

This is like "Stone Soup," but opposite.

honey, I'm home

We are so fortunate to live in an amazingly fecund place, the Willamette Valley. This month's Sunset magazine (the Northwest version, at least) features an article on the area. I went to an orchard this weekend just outside of town, and although I was sorely tempted to pick peaches, I settled on a half-flat of the biggest raspberries I've ever seen, perfect green beans, kohlrabi, cukes, walnuts, and a jar of local honey marked 'M/F.'

M/F is "meadowfoam," a marsh plant that apparently produces beneficial oils. It also produces an unusual honey from bees that mess around in its pollen. The farmer told me it tasted like caramel, and she was right. I've never tasted anything like it. It has notes of burnt sugar and what can only be called marshmallow (see list of honey types below).

You can read more about meadowfoam here, which is where I purloined the lovely image.

I always knew honey came in different types, based on the local flowers, and when we moved to Eugene I was delighted to see blackberry honey available everywhere. Blackberry honey doesn't have a marked taste of blackberries, though, and the delight turned quickly to disappointment. It seems, however, that meadowfoam is a local product, perhaps a flash-in-the-pan like the emu or nutria craze, but until they let loose the meadowfoamettes, I'm happy to call this a Willamette Valley specialty.

From this list, you can see how wildly honey varieties vary. Which ones have you tried? Are the descriptions accurate? And more importantly, what should I make with my meadowfoam honey?

fortification fridays - cold cherry soup

It's no secret that I love Hungarian food. This soup is a wonderful, simple way to either start a summer meal or end one. I've also been having fantasies about using it as a sauce over, say, crepes. There is an even better variation with sour (morello) cherries, and more traditional, complicated ways to make the soup (using more spices, cream, an egg yolk, etc.), but this one does in a pinch. And in the middle of the summer, doing in a pinch is good.

Cold Cherry Soup

Serves: 6 in tiny cups (it's rather rich)
Kitchen needs: A stovetop or hotplate

1 lb. pitted, halved cherries (bing are prettiest, but you may also use sour cherries)
1/2 cup Syrah or other intense red wine (Hungarian Bulls' Blood is perfect)
1/2 lemon, sliced and deseeded
4 T. sour cream, mixed with 1 T. powdered sugar
pinch cloves and a few shakes cinnamon, optional

Place cherries in saucepan and barely cover with water. Add lemon slices, wine, and spices to boil, then simmer until cherries soften but don't discolor. Whisk in sour cream and powdered sugar mixture. Simmer until slightly thickened, watching carefully so it doesn't boil, then chill before serving. Cold is crucial. Serve with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Image courtesy of a blog that makes me really sad I don't read Hungarian.

a sucker born every minute

There's a "sale pending" sign on the turquoise cottage. Crazy.

a berry happy july 4

The day the lonesome can. This is the closest you'll ever see me flag-waving, so enjoy!

Mr. Reluctant and I chose Independence Day 1998 to become officially husband and wife. We liked the irony. Now, nine years later, we're spending the day apart for the first time ever, I think. Even when we lived in different states (for three years), we were always together in the beginning of July. So I slave over a hot stove, on a hot day, turning berries into magic. There are worse things, I suppose.

Next year my raspberries will be, with all good luck, fecund. This year, I had to go to the farm stand to buy them. Oregon's Willamette Valley, where I am very pleased to say I live, is a huge berry-producing area. We are most proud of the Marionberry, which is a huge blackberry and not to be confused with Marion Barry, but I love the Boysenberry the most. Boysenberries are a cross between a blackberry, a red raspberry, and a Loganberry (itself a cross between the first two). They are reddish-purple and plump, and have a particular haunting, tart edge to the blackberry flavor. Needless to say, they make delicious jam. If you are ever in Oregon, be sure to find a place to taste our varieties of blackberry jam: Marionberry, Evergreen blackberry, wild (Himalayan) blackberry, Ollalieberry, and Boysenberry.

Although I've made blackberry jam and have eaten Boysenberries off the vine in Michigan (we had them at our house growing up), I've never been lucky enough to find a flat at a farm stand. Until now! YUM! I added a bit of my homemade blueberry liqueur, and used less sugar than usual (and Pomona pectin), and put up a big stock of Blue Boysenberry Jam and Hungarian Kisses Raspberry Jam (with Hungarian apricot liqueur).

And I did it all without an operational hood fan and no ventilation in the stove area on a 90-degree day. Now if that isn't hard core, I don't know what is. Let the freedom to do dumb things in the heat ring.

an apple (and a plum) a day

Name that fruit! I was surprised to find my plum tree bore bright tiny, red fruit with an amber flesh. Word on the street says that it's been a bad year for plums, and they are all small, so I'm not sure about the regular size. The poor little apple tree is suffering from peach leaf curl, I think, and it bore a bunch of fruit on exactly ONE branch. I'm not sure what to do about that. I think the apples may be Granny Smiths. They aren't quite ripe yet, and it's surprisingly early for them to be ripe at all, so I just have no clue. Anyone have any ideas on what kinds of plums or apples these might be?

EDITED TO ADD: Turns out the crops that need pollination, such as apples, didn't set well this year because it was so cold and the bees amscrayed. Only the sunniest branches of many fruit trees were visited by bees, hence the weird fruit set patterns.

The weeding project is going pretty well. The ground cover sucks eggs, man.

wish you were here...

...to help me weed! I'm tackling the front beds, which, according to the neighbor, haven't been touched as long as he can remember. That means over 10 years! Yay! Projects include digging out layers of root-running grass roots, removing heinous ground cover, murdering vinca vine shoots, disentangling grape vine, resetting the ugly brick border, laying out soaker hoses, and worrying over shubbery that was mangled with a chain saw.

The only nice thing is working under the gloriously magenta fronds of my flowering butterfly bush tree. And you, of course, since you're coming over to help. Thanks and see you soon!

Love,
me

fortification fridays - gyro-stuffed mushrooms

Mr. Reluctant is a big fan of stuffed mushrooms, but I find them bland. In my new zest for chopping up things that normally make classic dishes and reassembling them in new vessels, I invented a new stuffing. It's based on the Greek pita sandwich gyros, and it is made of ground lamb, garlic, pine nuts and other good things. To add a bit of summery cool tang, you should top these off with a dollop of tzatziki, a garlicky yogurt cucumber sauce. They keep for a few hours at room temperature, but add the sauce just before serving.

This recipe is a bit more complex than my usual style, but it's worth it. Martha Stewart provided the technique for pre-cooking the mushroom vessels (I believe her recipe is called "Golden Mushroom Caps" in her hors d'oeuvres book.) Removing as much liquid as possible is crucial, and her method makes for dripless mushrooms. I'm also indebted to Cook's Illustrated for the recent recipe for making gyros at home, which provided me with the inspiration to make the stuffing.

Gyro-Stuffed Mushrooms with Dollops of Tzatziki

Kitchen needs: broiler or oven to brown tops of mushrooms, range to brown meat, food processor
Serves: 8-10 as an appetizer

24 large white mushrooms
olive oil
1 piece pita bread
1/4 cup milk
5-6 cloves garlic
1 cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt (if you use the American kind, you'll need to drain it overnight because it must be thick like sour cream)
1/4 firm cucumber, grated
1 lb. ground lamb (don't use hamburger, you need the flavor)
2 shallots or a few tablespoons of red onion
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
juice from 1/2 lemon
fresh oregano
fresh mint
fresh parsley
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Tear pita bread into pieces and soak in a small bowl with milk to cover.

For Dollops of Tzatziki: grate cucumber using a box grater. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible, place in small bowl, then salt with about 1/2 t. salt and let sit to remove more water. After 15 minutes or so, squeeze again and blot with paper towels. Mix together salted cucumber bits, yogurt, a few tablespoons of chopped mint, and a large clove of garlic, pressed in a press. Refrigerate until immediately prior to serving.


Scoop out stems from mushrooms with a small spoon make pretty vessels. Be careful not to break the sides. Chop mushroom stems and set aside in bowl. Rub baking sheet and mushrooms with olive oil (you could use a brush, but I just use my hands). Bake, cap-side up, for 7-10 minutes. (But I messed up and did cap-side down, to no great harm). Mushrooms will turn golden and will exude liquid when they are ready.

While you are baking the mushroom caps, brown ground lamb in olive oil on medium high heat . Add chopped mushroom stems, 4-5 cloves chopped garlic and a couple of chopped shallots after cooking meat for a few minutes. When nice and brown, remove from heat and add salt and pepper.

In a large food processor, pulse the soaked bread and the meat mixture to combine. Don't turn it into a paste; you just want it smushed together so it will hold. Return to saute pan and add a handful of chopped parsley, a few tablespoons of chopped oregano, lemon juice, and pine nuts.

Remove mushrooms from baking sheet, drain and blot dry as much as possible with paper towels. Return to baking sheet for stuffing.

Preheat oven to broil on high.

Stuff mushroom caps and broil close to the heat source for a few minutes, or until browned and crusty on top. Watch carefully, since they can burn easily.

Serve on a white platter with dollops of tzatziki sauce on top. These hold well, since you've been diligent about liquid removal, so it's ok to let them sit, but add chilled tzatziki only immediately prior to serving. If you're fancy, garnish each mushroom with an oregano leaf.

I'd imagine this stuffing would also be good stuffed in tomatoes or peppers.

a must-have

If you don't have one of these upright sweeper sets, you must drop that drywall sander and run out to the store to purchase one. What with all the dirt you're making, you'll need it. I've spent my whole life bending down and sticking my face into little clouds of dust to sweep into a traditional dustpan. This set eliminates the need to bend. Hurrah!

The image above is a Casabella Duck Upright Sweep Set, which seems to be available everywhere from The Container Store to Cost Plus to amazon.com. It's the one I have (but mine is blue), and I recommend it. But if you find another one you like better, snag it.

Mr. Reluctant is off for several weeks, so I've decided that to stay on track and unlonely, I'm going to make myself do house projects and work projects each day, even though I'd rather mope around looking at LOLcats all day and eating potato chips. So far, I've already planted grass seed on the bare spots in the lawn (see picture), gouged my arm disentangling grape vines from the butterfly bush tree, and pinched my upper arm hard when the camera lens retracted suddenly (don't ask). So far, so good. The picture is notable because it represents the first time Mr. Reluctant has ever voluntarily weeded anything on his own. Hence, the bare spots in the lawn that needed seeding. Yes, I know it's the middle of summer, and I don't care. I'm very proud of him.

My projects will include stuff I can manage on my own:

- finish painting the kitchen;
- organize the shed;
- organize the painting materials and the increasingly messy back room;
- paint the laundry room;
- start planning exterior painting (paint the shed as a sample?);
- trim the back hedge (aucuba japonica);
- weed the front area around the house (gulp);
- chop down the wisteria and begin the painful process of removing the underground suckers;
- replace the crappy broken trim on the counter.

there goes the neighborhood?

The little turquoise cottage I mentioned in my blog entry about mid-century vernacular architecture in Eugene is on the market. Two bed, one bath. Only about 950 square feet, but the real estate agent/owner is trying to claim that the "finished" (i.e., not a dirt floor) basement ups the square footage to almost 2000. Um, no. The yard is actually quite nice in the back, with a dramatic terrace effect and mature roses and some overgrown hedges and fruit trees. A gardener could make it really lovely. The kitchen has original cabinetry, first growth Doug fir floors, and it's very, very cute but small. The floors have some condition problems but could be refinished easily (although the kitchen is Doug fir, the rest of the house is in short slat red and white oak, like our floors). The house was built in 1938 (if I remember correctly) and it's a true WWII cottage, with wrap-around windows, a compact footprint, low ceilings, and small rooms. The house itself is adorable but really small, unless you are a couple with no kids and no need for a study. The major down side is that the house is next to the neighborhood convenience store market and restaurant, and the yard abuts the garbage dumpsters for the restaurant. Sure, there are privacy fences, but still. The convenience store is situated on a busy corner of two thoroughfares, and the house doesn't have much of a front yard (see picture). The neighbor on the other side is a house of about the same era that was built too close to the cottage, so the houses look like they're huddling together next to the restaurant parking lot. In short, the location is a dealbreaker.

So how much would you pay for this little gem? If you're not singing to the tune of $325K, you'd be left out in the cold.

Crazy, huh? All I can say is I hope it sells for that, because then my house will be as valuable as the Hope Diamond.