Last Friday, Nathan and I randomly decided to treat ourselves to a dinner at Incanto, one of our favorite restaurants in the city. I remember the first time we tried this place out was on a Sunday night after a strenuous and stressful weekend of moving (note to self: never try to move with just a pickup truck again). We of course had no idea it was the sort of place you should make a reservation for nor that the chef is famous for his offal-ness (ha ha), so we just stuck to the more “normal” sounding stuff on the menu.
This time around, having done our research, we went all out. House-cured meats? Oh yes please. Spicy pork offal with mint and arugula? Don’t mind if I do. Head cheese? Never thought I’d say this, but yum! This is one Italian restaurant I will gladly go to again and again, since I don’t foresee myself wanting to deal with pork hearts and kidneys at home.
What can I make at home? Simple stuff like this risotto. Especially when I’m trying to use up the last bit of corn and red peppers from last week’s veggie box. That’s right - my life is always about not letting things rot.
(more…)
I lack discipline. I really do.
If you’ve ever gone food-shopping with me, this will be no surprise to you. Just last week alone, I made two impulse buys - a bucket of ‘ugly’ fresh shitake mushrooms at the farmer’s market (”it’s such a good deal!”) and a whole bunch of shiso leaves at the Japanese store (”but I must have them for the umeshiso rolls!”). It doesn’t sound like that much, you say? Well, did I tell you that we also subscribe to a weekly delivery of organic produce from Terra Firma Farms? This makes our fridge is a veritable garden, but one where we’re sometimes faced with the task of figuring out how to combine various ingredients that are all going to go bad soon. So… shiso, shitake, and my general laziness in trying to find something more ambitious to do with them resulted in a simple Japanese-style pasta dish.
(more…)
For a while now, every time I would open the freezer, there would be a few tubs of this pork broth I made a few months ago, taunting me to find a use for them. Honestly, I can’t even remember exactly why I had pork bones to make broth from - I guess we took the meat off for some other use? Anyway, what can you do with pork broth? I toyed around with the idea for a pork pho for a bit, but having never made regular beef pho before, I was hesitant to attempt my first pho with an alternate meat. Then, in a moment of revelation, I finally figured out where in the noodle world pork broth fits… Ramen! (duh)
Although my broth was also made from pork bones, it was much lighter and clearer than my favorite milky-white tonkotsu broth. I heated it up with the white parts of some scallions, ladled it on top of some fresh ramen, and garnished with the green parts of scallions plus a hard-boiled egg (from Devil’s Gulch Ranch - I’m currently obsessed with finding really good farm eggs). Speaking of ramen, why won’t Japanese stores sell just fresh ramen without seasoning packets?!
To go with the simplistic bowls of noodles, I made some umeshiso maki. Mine all came out pretty sad-looking with rips and tears in places, but as my mom likes to say, “It all ends up looking the same in your stomach anyway.”
(more…)
Last weekend at the Alemany farmer’s market, it seemed like everybody and their moms were selling okras. Most of the stands had big cardboard boxes full of giant okra pods. I don’t know if I’m totally making this up or if someone wise actually told me this, but aren’t giant pods supposed to be stringy and tough? Bleh.
So there I was, amongst all the ruthless Chinese ladies with sharp elbows (I’m allowed to say this because I’m Chinese), picking through the box of giants to find the babies. Said babies then ended up in my cauldron for a hearty Bhindi Masala - mwahaha.
(more…)
This weekend was one of Nathan’s ex-roommate’s birthday and to celebrate, there was to be a picnic in the park. Dolores Park, you ask? Golden Gate park, perhaps? Nope, Laurie Meadows Park in San Mateo. Despite the somewhat random location (i.e. no one attending actually lives in San Mateo), LM park turned out to be a cute little park with plenty of flat grassy space - great for picnics, picnicking doggies, and picnicky activities like throwing a frisbee around. Since it was a potluck, I decided to whip out one of the easiest picnicking recipes I know, courtesy of Jamie Oliver, the “Naked Chef”:
(more…)
