Fruit and Cream Oatmeal

Some people consider breakfast the most important meal of the day. I used to get packaged oatmeal with fruit flavors, but now I try to eat local and minimally processed food, so I just buy a box of any kind of plain, instant oatmeal (ok, so I mainly started buying it to try and lower my cholesterol with the soluble fiber). I buy instant because I don't really have time in the morning to spend 30 minutes making Irish oatmeal. Now, I know you can make a giant batch and then portion it out and reheat it, but I don't really trust how that will turn out. Also, I like to cook the fruit with the oatmeal so that the fruit juice permeates the entire bowl of oatmeal. This way you get fruit flavor in every bite. So without further ado, here is how I make my fruit and cream oatmeal.

Ingredients:
Oatmeal (I use some form of instant, generally. Right now I have Instant Irish and Trader Joe's instant steel cut, which takes a little bit longer to cook, at 8 min. When I use that, I just start the water boiling, add the oatmeal, and make my lunch while it cooks.)
Any kind of fruit (good choices include peaches, blueberries, strawberries)
Butter, half & half, some type of sweetener (I use honey or maple syrup, depending on the fruit), cinnamon, all to taste

Cook the oatmeal according to the directions on the package. I don't microwave, because I usually just end up with a mess, and as I mentioned above, I like to put the oatmeal and the fruit in the boiling water at the same time to get a consistent fruit flavor. When it's done, just spoon it into a bowl, and add the toppings to taste.

Fresh Peas

English peas (shell peas) are in season in New England right now, although I'm not sure how much longer you'll be able to find them in the farmer's market. If you can't get English peas in the shell fresh, just buy them frozen. I thought I would pass along a tip that I learned from Mark Peel, executive chef at Campanile in Los Angeles. As you shell the peas, divide them into three groups--small, medium, and large. I like to do this in front of the TV, since it's a little tedious, but luckily all the peas in one pod tend to be about the same time, so you don't have to sort through individual peas. The peas cook at different rates, so put the large ones in first, then the medium, then the small. You'll get perfectly cooked peas every time.

Frozen Green Beans

Green beans are not a vegetable that you should buy frozen. Some vegetables, such as peas, corn, and okra (to name a few) freeze pretty well. You can buy them frozen, or buy them fresh and then freeze whatever you have leftover. Green beans are not in that category. They get really waterlogged and then come out soggy when you try and cook them. This tip is brought to you by my dinner, which hopefully will still turn out well. Also, I'll try and post it, because I think it would be really delicious with fresh beans. I know I've been really remiss in updating this blog, but I have a few issues with pictures I need to sort out. I'm also going to just start fresh and not post all the back recipes I have, because I'll never post anything new if I'm waiting to update all the backlog.

Hard Raspberry Lemonade

My brother got me a fermenter (Mr. Beer brand, basically a 2+ gallon keg with a vent and spigot) for Christmas. While my first batch of beer undergoes secondary fermentation, I thought I'd try a fermented fruit beverage. Quick searches on the internet informed me that this would be incredibly easy - make sure you have enough sugar and you're good to go. My first trial is a hard raspberry lemonade.

Recipe:
3 cans frozen lemonade concentrate (I got mine from Trader Joe's - any brand should work, just make sure it contains real sugar and no preservatives)
1 bag frozen raspberries (again, I got mine from Trader Joe's)
4.5 cups honey (given enough time, I'd experiment with varying amounts of honey - it changes sweetness and alcohol content)

Make sure all utensils and fermenter are sterilized.
In saucepan, combine lemonade concentrate with 1.5 qt water, bring to boil, lower heat to simmer. Slowly add honey, making sure it all dissolves. Add raspberries, cook until raspberries are mushy and releasing juice. Turn off heat. Put 4 qt cold water into fermenter. Add lemonade-honey-raspberry mixture to fermenter. Add more cold water to get total volume to 8.5 qts. Start yeast (put some yeast into 1 cup warm water with sugar and yeast nutrient) - I used champagne yeast (given time, will experiment with different yeasts). Pour yeast into fermenter and stir, put lid on fermenter and let sit for some time. After 4-5 days I found it had a good sweetness-to-alcohol profile, so I bottled (old screw-top wine bottle) and refrigerated (to slow the fermentation process) some and let the rest continue to complete fermentation (all sugar converted to alcohol). A future update will say how well this worked.


Note: It tasted really good straight out of the fermenter 5 days in (still sweet, a bit fizzy, alcohol probably 5-6%), which IMO would be the optimal time to serve. (I realize this would require scheduling a party to coincide with the fermentation schedule - maybe someday I will do this.)

GELATO VS ICE CREAM

Well,  I made gelato.  For 2 days.  And then I started inviting people over to have taste tests.  Because I wanted to see if there was a difference between gelato and ice cream.

So here's what I did.

I have 2 machines, an ice cream maker and my recently bought gelato maker.  I also have an excessive number of recipe books for frozen desserts.  I made four different recipes; two traditional gelato recipes with lower fat contents (crema and mascarpone) and 2 traditional ice cream recipes (chocolate and espresso).  I then put half of each batch in the machines and made them according to the instructions.  Next, I called friends to see if they were interested in participating in my taste test.  The deal was that after they taste-tested everything, they could make their own "ice cream sundaes" with all the toppings.  I didn't have to pay anyone an honorarium to get them to participate!

Here are the very unscientific results.  Because people have flavour preferences, I can't really say if they prefer ice cream over gelato, except to tell you what I have left over and the comments that I heard.

ICE CREAM

Chocolate
2/3 of people preferred the one made in the ice cream machine, but did complain about the texture in both of the batches.  I've never found a recipe where that has not been a problem.  Which is a problem for me, since it seems everyone loves chocolate ice cream.  If there is anyone out there who has a great chocolately ice cream recipe that does not have a grainy texture to it, please share.


Espresso
This came out 50/50 for which machine they preferred.  This flavour was a favorite for many of the tasters.  I wonder if that might be a function of the fact that many of the tasters were doctors, who are known to live on coffee in the early stages of their careers?

Now on to the gelato...............

GELATO

Crema
By a 3:2 majority, this was preferred in gelato form, and was the second most popular.

Mascarpone
This was very interesting.  Just about everyone preferred this one made in the ice cream machine.  No one said this was their favorite ice cream and yet, as I watched everyone kept putting their spoons back into this one "for one more bite".   Not quite sure what this means.  I really liked it and will make it again.  But then tiramisu is a favorite dessert of mine and mascarpone is the cheese that is used to make that dessert.  What also is interesting about this gelato is that it is the only one that doesn't use eggs so it is easier to make than the others.  And I have no egg whites from it to figure out what to do with them.  Perhaps it comes out better in the ice cream machine because the cheese is denser and the ice cream machine puts more air into the dessert.

One of my tasters is a native Italian.  She admitted before the taste test she always preferred ice cream to gelato, and true to form she did in this taste test.  The one kid to participate only wanted chocolate and after much hemming and hawing, she decided, "by just a little bit(e)" she preferred the ice cream.


Gelato is the the healthier choice.  Perhaps Rachel would like to chime in on what she thinks about my results as all the tasters (except the kid and one young adult) were in their 40's and older.  I think that we need to devise a nerdier test with some of her friends, to get a better age range and scientific test to add to her original research on the matter.

(For those of you who want to read more about the difference of gelato and ice cream, see my other blog, DrVickisBytesonTykes.blogspot.com.)

Brookline Farmer's Market

I'm continuing our series on regional farmer's markets by talking about my local one in Brookline, MA. It's in Coolidge Corner, Thursdays from 1:30 until sunset starting about mid-June and going until mid-October. As my mom mentioned, when I was younger I didn't really like going to the Santa Monica farmer's market, but I must have absorbed something, because I try and make it a regular part of my routine now. As a college student in Claremont, I rarely went, since it was quite small. As a graduate student in Irvine, however, I really started using the farmer's market. Hopefully when I'm home in August I can get something on that.

Living in California spoiled me for fresh produce. The market here is smaller, it's not year-round, and it's more expensive. There also isn't the same variety of product. I also think the quality of produce is much lower. Also, as the school year picks up it gets harder to go to a Thursday market. I have lot to say about the privilege inherent in being able to go to a farmer's market in the middle of a workday and the socioeconomic makeup of the attendees of the Brookline market in particular, but that's a subject for a different blog. The main plus for me is the homemade ice cream stand. It really hits the spot after walking the 1.25 miles from my office to the market in sweltering Boston humidity. The red raspberry chip is fantastic.

I do find that the quality of produce is much higher than the grocery store, and it lasts a lot longer. It's late July, and peaches have just come into season. They're about the same price as in CA; $2.50-$3.00 per pound, and the quality is not bad. I haven't seen any nectarines, though. The blueberries are also delicious, and I think those might be cheaper. They're ~$5.00 for a pint, and make an excellent addition to my morning cereal. The thing that I'm saddest about is the lack of pluots. The pluot lady in Irvine had at least 10 varieties, spanning June until October.

One thing that MA has that CA doesn't do quite as well is apples. Last fall I saw so many types of apples that I had never seen before. I don't normally like apples, because I find them somewhat mealy, but the New England apples have changed my mind. No, there's not a gala or a pink lady in sight, but the macoun is my new favorite apple. It's got a really dark skin, and bright white flesh. I'm looking forward to seeing it come back in season.

The three pictures show you the extent of the entire market. It's small, and I'm not able to use it as my sole produce provider, but it's a good walk and it has delicious ice cream!

Zuppa di Lentils and Pastina

This morning was another rainy morning in Boston. Since it's the middle of July, however, temperatures were in the 80s by 9 AM. The rain did remind me of a soup I've been meaning to write up, though. I made it in late March, when by all accounts it should be spring. Boston weather is variable, to be euphemistic about it, so it was another cold, gray day. Perfect for soup. I adapted the recipe from the back of the box containing the pastina, which are teeny-tiny pearl noodles. Mine happen to be shaped like stars! I made this for myself, and had enough to last two days. The nice thing about soups is you can easily change the amount to suit your needs.


Ingredients
1/4 cup pastina
Olive Oil
1 onion, chopped
Rosemary, to taste (I used dried, and I also threw in some of my dried Fines Herbes, which is a combination of thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, marjoram, and basil. Use whatever you have.)
Garlic, minced
1/2 lb. lentils
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Preparation
1. Heat the oil in the pot you're going to use to cook the soup. Add the onion and garlic, and saute.
2. Add water, lentils, and everything else but the pastina. The amount of water depends on how you like your soup. The amount called for in the recipe is 6 cups. Lentils and pastina both absorb a lot of water (the pastina, especially) so you may want to check on it and add more water if necessary. As you can see by the picture, I like my soup with very little broth. Bring the water to a boil, and cook until the lentils are soft.
3. Add the pastina, and cook until that's soft, about 6 min.