Projects - Eating San Francisco

Final Supper

2010-05-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

So we've come to the end of the year and our Final Supper. It's been a good semester... I was very excited for this project because of the vast selection of delicious foods in season. Now I understand why spring has historically been an exciting time - the cold season passing away, and a bounty of fruits and veggies fit for a queen! The season was urging us to celebrate, and celebrate we did - with a delicious feast! I decided to make a pasta dish with asparagus and broccoli. It only requires three steps!

Spring Vegetable Angel Hair w/ Lemon Cream Sauce

Ingredients:
- 2 cups broccoli florets (about 1/4 cup of this came from our garden)

- 2 cups asparagus (one stalk came from our garden)

- 1/4 cup salted butter
- 8 oz angel hair pasta
- 6 oz cream cheese, cubed
- 1 cup milk
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp peppter
- 1 Tbsp grated lemon peel

Preparation:
1. Put water for pasta on to boil. For amount of water, see package instructions.
2. Chop broccoli florets and asparagus into bite-sized pieces.
3. Cut cream cheese into cubes and place in bowl near stove to soften.
4. Using a cheese grater, grate 1 Tbsp of lemon peel.

5. If not already grated, grate parmesan cheese.

Instructions:
1. Place butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Saute broccoli and asparagus for about 9 minutes or until they are crisp but tender. Remove from heat and add lemon peel. When pasta water is boiling, cook angel hair according to package directions (generally about 3 minutes).

2. Over medium heat, add milk and cream cheese to a small saucepan. Stir continuously until there are no chunks of cream cheese left. Stir in parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Cook a few minutes longer, until the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat.

3. Drain angel hair and put into a large serving bowl. Add veggies and sauce and toss together until all ingredients are equally distributed. Serve as soon as possible.

Green Media - Lunch Project

2010-04-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

For the lunch project in Green Media, I decided to try to be as brief as possible with my post to practice for the recipe card making we are going to be doing for our library exhibit. The recipe I chose was for Zuppa Toscana, a soup that my whole family loves and normally purchases at Olive Garden. I know how to make it now, so once I learn how to make those amazing breadsticks, we'll never have to go to Olive Garden again! Here's the recipe, and beware: it's a little bit spicy!

Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients:

5 links uncooked spicy Italian sausage
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups chicken broth
2 potatoes, halved and sliced (with skin)
3 cups kale, sliced into bite-size pieces
1 cup chard, sliced into bite-size pieces
1/3 cup heavy cream
dash of red pepper flakes

Instructions:

1. Slice open sausage links. Put olive oil in pan. Empty sausage meat into the pan. Saute until no pink is left.
2. Drain oil. Add onions and saute for 4 minutes. Add pepper flakes and garlic and saute for another 2 minutes.
3. Add chicken broth and potatoes and bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Lower heat slightly and add cream and kale. Cook until kale wilts. Serve.

That's it! Four easy steps and you're done. Now I'm going to post pictures of the soup-making process, so you can see for yourself how easy it is!

Green Media - Breakfast Project

2010-02-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

It's Spring again, and with it brings a new semester and a new class: Green Media. The focus of this class is to make media about making local and seasonal food. Our first project, logically, is the breakfast project. This was a sort of warm-up project, so the goal was simply to make some breakfast food, enjoy it with the class, and make media about it.
I decided to make bagels. My favorite part of cooking is knowing I have the power to create things that are generally thought of as store-bought-only. Bagels are a mysterious entity and no one that I know has ever made them from scratch, so I wanted to give it a try. I usually avoid recipes that call for yeast because the rising times seem so daunting, but when I just went for it, it really wasn't so bad. Here is how I made the bagels...

Step One: Find a recipe
My original goal was to make basil bagels because I own a beautiful basil plant named Darlene that I've raised from seed and wanted to use her leaves in my food. Here are my search results:
Google Search: "basil bagels recipe"
Scanning down the list, I saw a lot of "tomato basil" recipes. Not only did I not have any tomatoes on hand, I didn't want to use tomatoes for another reason: they're not in season. This is how I figured out what was in season in the bay area:
California Availability Guide
This guide was a link I found on our professor, David Silver's, blog syllabus for our class. However, another way to find the same information would be to Google Search: "California seasonality chart".
Anyways, after I Googled "basil bagels recipe", I scanned down the list and found what I thought would be a recipe for basil bagels. It was the seventh on the list and was titled "Basil Bagels Recipe | Tastespotting". As you can see, when you click on the link it brings you to a simple picture of some bagels and not much else. Because I had no other choice, I clicked on the photograph, which linked me to this page: "Basic Bagel Recipe | Better With Butter". After reading over it for a bit, I gathered that this is a blog of someone new to bread-making just like I am. This recipe was for plain bagels, but I decided to use it anyways as a good first bagel recipe.

Step Two: The Ingredients List
I had to scroll down a bit to find the ingredients list, but it's the first thing I like to look at on a recipe to determine how expensive my cooking endeavor will be. Here are the ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg white
- 1 potato, peeled and quartered
- 1 packet of active dry yeast
- 4 cups of high-gluten or bread flour
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar (divided)
- 1/2 tablespoon of salt

Everything looks pretty basic. You can find all of these items at the store. However, there are a few things I want to point out:
1. This recipe calls for 2 eggs and an egg white. This means that you need to start with three eggs, but the last one needs to be separated. To separate an egg, follow the instructions in this "How To Separate Egg Whites" video.
2. This recipe calls for a peeled and quartered potato. This means the potato needs to have its skin removed using either a peeler or a knife. Quartering a potato simply means cutting it into four equal-sized chunks.
3. This recipe calls for one packet of active dry yeast. You can buy these packets at the store, but if you have yeast in bulk or in a jar, you will need to know how much to measure out. A packet of yeast generally contains 2 1/2 teaspoons, so this is how much you will use for this recipe.
4. This recipe calls for high-gluten or bread flour. Most people who cook have all-purpose flour already in their kitchens. However, this kind of flour will not produce desirable results when making bagels (in other words, they wont be chewy). Make sure to get bread or high-gluten flour, which can be found near the all-purpose flour in the grocery store.
5. This recipe notes that you will need 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar (divided). This simply means that you will use a part of that amount of sugar during one step during the baking process, and the rest of that amount during another part of the baking process. Pay attention to the instructions in the recipe whenever it talks about this ingredient (sugar) to make sure you are using the right amount for each step.

Step Three: Preparing The Batter For Mixing
This section is important because most recipes do not explain how to mix, they simply list the ingredients to add and hope you know what you're doing. I'm going to be much more detailed because I think it will make everyone's results turn out much better.
The first thing to do is boil a pan of water big enough to fit your potato. Once the water is boiling (that is, once bubbles are constantly rolling to the top of the water), carefully add the peeled and quartered potato. Leave it in there for 15 minutes, making sure the water doesn't spill out of the pan. If it begins to boil over, turn down the heat a little bit.
After 15 minutes, throw away the potato and, using a wet measuring cup pour 2/3 cup of the pan's water into a glass. Put this glass into the freezer for about 10 minutes.
MEANWHILE...
While the glass is chilling in the freezer, get a large bowl. Using a dry measuring cup and a spoon, spoon flour into the measuring cup. Do not dip the measuring cup directly into the flour, as this will pack the flour and you will end up adding too much to your bagels. Instead, lightly spoon the flour into the cup and add 4 cups to the bowl. Add a half tablespoon of sugar and a half tablespoon of salt and mix lightly with your hands.
Test the water in the freezer with your hands. The temperature should feel similar to that of a hot tub or hot bath. Or, if you have a thermometer, it should be 110 degrees or less. Add the 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast to the cooled potato water, give it a quick stir, and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes. You will know it's ready when you see a slight foam begin to form at the top of the glass.

Step Four: Mixing The Dough Together
Now use a dry spoon to make a well in the middle of the flour mixture. Dig out the center of the flour until you can see the bottom of the bowl. Now add the 2 eggs and an egg white, the yeast/water mixture, and 1/4 cup of vegetable oil into the well you just made in the flour. Using your hand, gently squeeze the wet mixture into the flour mixture until everything is incorporated into a dough.

Step Five: Kneading The Dough & Letting It Rise
At this point, get out a cutting board and throw about a tablespoon of flour across the surface. Then grab the dough and place it on the cutting board. Then you must knead it for 10-15 minutes. Here is a video showing you how to knead dough:
"How To Knead Dough"
You can tell the dough has been kneaded sufficiently when you poke your finger into it and the indentation stays there.
Next, place the dough on a greased cookie sheet. To grease a cookie sheet, take a paper towel and dip it into shortening or butter. Using the paper towel, smear the shortening or butter over the surface of a cookie sheet, making sure to cover all of it. Place the dough onto the greased cookie sheet and cover it with a damp towel. Now it is time to let the dough rest and rise. It is best to let it rise in a place that is around 85 degrees. I let mine rise sitting on the stove over a preheating oven. It will take from 60-90 minutes for the dough to rise to 1 1/2 times its original size.

Step Six: Shaping The Dough Into O's
Once this occurs, remove the towel and divide the dough into 12 equal portions. You can simply estimate. My method was to divide the dough in half, then in half again, and then each of those halves into three parts.
Take each piece of dough and roll it into a ball with your palms. Then, stick your finger through the middle, and swing it around on your finger to form a bagel shape. Here is a video to assist you with that:
Shape Cinnamon Raisin Bagels
Place each bagel onto another greased cookie sheet, or simply rinse off and re-grease the cookie sheet you used to let the dough rise. Cover the bagels with a damp towel and let them rise for another 20 minutes.

Step Seven: Boiling The Bagels
Boil a wide and medium deep pan of water with 1 tablespoon of sugar added. While the water is heating, preheat the oven to 450F. Once the water is boiling, use a slotted spoon to lower each bagel into the boiling water. Boil for 1 minute 30 seconds and then use the slotted spoon to tip and flip each bagel so that the other side can be boiled for another 1 minute and 30 seconds. Remove each bagel from the boiling water and place it on either a wire rack or a cookie sheet to drain.

Step Eight: Baking The Bagels
Once all of the bagels have been boiled and drained, place them together on a greased cookie sheet and bake for around 15 minutes. You want the surface of them to be golden brown. Take the cookie sheet out of the oven and turn the oven off. Let the bagels cool to room temperature before trying to remove them from the cookie sheet. Congratulations! You have just made your own tasty homemade bagels! Store in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator for the longest shelf life!

Cook A Delicious Meal For The Fiesta!

2009-05-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

Our last assignment for ESF was to cook a delicious meal from local, seasonal ingredients and document it. It was awesome to be challenged in this way and I took some time doing research, looking through cookbooks, and going to farmer's markets before I decided what I was going to make.

Let's start from the beginning. I have Italian neighbors. They are awesome people and one day we began to talk about food. I was new to the city and wanted to know their recommendation for the best Italian in the city. I had moved from Reno, Nevada and was excited about all the choices of cuisine in San Francisco. I didn't expect their response of "North Beach is crap, all crap." I had gone to North Beach for my birthday, in fact, and enjoyed it very much. Regardless, they are the Italian ones, so I suppose I trust their opinion. The conversation eventually turned to their favorite Italian dish. Paolo, who is originally from Genoa, Italy, told me his favorite dish was gnocchi with pesto sauce. Gnocchi was something that I'd only recently heard of via one of my vegan cookbooks and I'd been wanting to try out a recipe. "Excellent!" I said. "I shall make you gnocchi with pesto!"
"It wont be as good," Paolo plainly stated.
Slightly offended, I asked him what he meant. Apparently, Genoa is famous for their particular strain of basil, and thus any pesto made from American basil would simply not be as good. After that conversation, I got slightly discouraged regarding gnocchi-making, and eventually forgot about it.
Getting back to the assignment, it occurred to me that gnocchi would be an excellent recipe to make for the class. I went to two farmers markets: the one at USF and the one on Divisadero and Grove.

At the USF market, I bought:
- 1 garlic

- 2 baking potatoes (the last four!)

- 1 artichoke (for one dollar!!)

At the Divisadero market...

I purchased....

- 2 bunches of basil (the last two!)

- 1 bunch of carrots (so sweet!!)

Then I headed home to start the work!

First the potatoes had to be baked for 1 hour in the oven.

Then they had to be placed in ice water so I could peel them while they were still hot! It kinda hurt...

Then I put the potatoes into the food processor with some non-local turmeric. I looked around for local turmeric, but just couldn't find any.
As a side note, I only put the potatoes in the food processor because my masher was broken. I think the food processor was the downfall of my gnocchi. I'll tell you why in a second...

Then I put the mashed potatoes into a mixture of flour and salt. The flour was from Rainbow Grocery and locally milled. The salt I got from my neighbor because my roommate moved out and well...it was her salt. Very funny how you take these things for granted. Anyways, I didn't have any salt, so I decided to do the old-fashioned thing and walk upstairs to ask my neighbor Jamal if he had any salt. I was very lucky because he had this crazy black-colored salt that he got from Rainbow. He said it was stronger than normal salt, so I adjusted to taste. I believe the salt was local because I called Rainbow and they said most of their sea salts were, but I'm not certain.

I mixed it all together and it was incredibly sticky. Because the next step was rolling it out, I had to add a TON of flour in order to prevent it from sticking in huge gooey gobs to my hands and counter (which I cleaned with antibacterial kitchen cleaner before using!). As far as what went wrong, my guess is that the food processing of the potatoes broke up the potato cells too much and released too much water into the mixture. Anyways, rolled out the dough and cut it into pieces. I placed the pieces on a cookie sheet to freeze them. This was the most time consuming part of making this recipe.

While the gnocchi were freezing, I decided to make the pesto. The first step was to roast the pine nuts. I got the pine nuts from Lucky, and I believe they were made in China and distributed out of Southern California. Not very local, but pesto without pine nuts doesn't sound too tasty, especially since the recipe was vegan and would not contain parmesan cheese for extra flavor.

Then I ground the pine nuts, garlic, and salt together in the food processor.

And added basil and olive oil.

I put the pesto in the refrigerator to chill and began to boil water for the gnocchi. I took the frozen gnocchi and dropped them a few at a time into the boiling water and scooped them out to drain when they began to float on the top of the water. I put the cooked gnocchi into a serving dish and tossed it with the chilled pesto. It wasn't as great as I wanted it to be, but people seemed to like it, so I guess that's all that matters!

Trash Produced:
- 1 small plastic bag which contained the pine nuts (so very regrettable...)

I could have made this recipe producing no trash by buying ridiculously expensive pine nuts, but I just didn't have the budget for it at the time.

Anyways, that's my last post for ESF! It's been an amazing year!
Thanks everyone!

Haight Project

2009-05-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

On our trip to the Haight, we visited two very different restaurants: Zazie and McDonald's. The way we decided to eat at these places seemed innocent enough. Like most things in ESF, the decision was made during a casual conversation thrown in between an intense literary analysis of our reading of the week. David was telling us that we had some extra money in our class fund due to a mistake with the Castro dinner, and suggested that we go somewhere nicer for dinner. Almost everyone was immediately on board, though we decided to drop by McDonald's for dessert to honor our original up plan. Someone said we should go to Zazie, and we felt that because of Zazie's dedication to seasonal, local, and human dishes, it would be an appropriate last field trip for the class.

Zazie is located in Cole Valley. Cole Valley is filled with cute (if not somewhat yuppy) shops and restaurants, overpriced health stores, and classic San Francisco architecture. The average person on the street is usually dressed in nice clothing, whether hip or classy, is carrying some sort of attractive bag to carry their belongings, and looks somewhat intellectual. These are the sort of people who shower everyday, are on successful career paths, and care about their health. Because of their decent salaries, they can buy health food from the overpriced health stores and have leisure time to exercise and read. These are the people who are eating at Zazie. These are the people who can afford to eat cows who were raised with an ocean view and seventeen dollar plates of pasta. Walk down a couple of blocks and you get to McDonald's.
The people hanging around Haight and Stanyan are colored with the grime of the street. They look unhealthy and most likely are if they are eating at McDonald's. McDonald's is so cheap that you can get a whole cheeseburger with change you find on the street. The cows that went into the burgers at McDonald's didn't have an ocean view, but that never comes to mind. Nothing at McDonald's really looks anything like an animal, as Michael Pollan mentioned in The Omnivore's Dilemma. However, the food's appearance isn't the only reason you never think about the cow's view. Consider these two lifestyles:

1. Your family doesn't have a lot of money. You spend your money where you can get the most for your dollar. You can't afford college and have to work long hours, after which you go relax with friends or go to sleep. You don't have much leisure time to spend participating in outdoor activities or reading about healthy lifestyles.

2. You were raised by a family who is well-off. You go out to dinner on occasion to try new things. You go to college where you are constantly questioned about your views and forced to examine them. You have some leisure time and spend some of it in the school gym.

In our country, the poor people are the overweight ones. They spend most of their time working, which in a natural world would keep them in shape because the "work" that exists in the natural world is that of survival: catching, hunting, growing, collecting your own food. We've created office jobs and grocery stores which take us completely out of that cycle and it's killing us. Unless we have the money to buy "whole" foods, we are going to buy what we can afford. Unless we have time and money to exercise, we are going to be sedentary because we do not need to move in order to survive. We have become the equivalent to the great dane living in a tiny studio in New York whose owner is always out of town. We need health articles to tell us the sun gives us vitamins. We are living an artificial and inefficient lifestyle.
In my opinion, it's strange and unnatural that someone with less money can afford to eat a fattening and inhumanely produced cheeseburger from McDonald's, but cannot afford to buy the ingredients for a nutritious home-cooked meal made from local ingredients. Local ingredients take less gas to get to us, and yet because of the way the food industry is structured in this country, it is more expensive. Real food costs more than unnaturally produced food. Maybe this seems natural. Real food is, of course, more desirable, and thus more expensive. However, my question is: Why does fake food exist in the first place and how can we get rid of it? How can we reclaim our mammal-ness?

Chinatown Project

2009-04-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

Eating San Francisco's Chinatown field trip was unique among the class outings we've gone on so far for several reasons. First, it was held on a Saturday. That means we were taken out of the class mindset and were in weekend mode. Second, this field trip was conducted during the morning, which puts us in a different state of mind. Personally, I know I felt much more relaxed and adventurous, and the beautiful weather of the day only added to my positivity. Then again, I can be somewhat of a morning person.
Our first stop was the Tin How Temple. It was amazing and you would have missed it if you didn't know it was there. We went into a tiny entrance and then climbed several flights of stairs to a room with ornate decorations everywhere. The interesting thing about this temple was the way the desk was set up because it made it look like some sort of business. They were selling bracelets and incense for prayers, and people in the temple were lighting paper sculptures on fire and fanning the smoke into the room. It was incredibly smoky inside, despite the large patio that was open to the air. Looking down from the patio was exciting. I felt like I was in a secret lair, looking over people who had no idea I was up there or how I got there. Nick got his fortune told at the temple, though I must admit I was rather unimpressed. Excitement was building as Nick used the special flame to light the incense, stuck them into the container, and kneeled before it. However, when it came time for the fortune to be told and I saw the women walking toward Nick, I was expecting her to read his palm or sit down with him or something. Instead, she gave him a typed piece of paper with various generalized predictions on them. The most interesting one was when it described pregnancies as being successful, which is something most college kids do not want to hear. Regardless of the disappointing fortune-telling session, it was an overall good experience to see the temple. It was cool to watch the women expertly folding the paper into little boats and definitely a new experience to see real people practicing Asian religions. I feel very under-exposed to Asian history and culture, which could be because I'm from Reno, Nevada, or because American schools like to focus on America and Europe and say they are teaching world history.
The next place we went on our field trip was New Asia, a restaurant specializing in dim sum. Dim sum was really the main reason for the trip, and I think most of the people in class were skeptical of this mystery food. Stephanie hinted that the Yelp reviews were not so pleasant and, in my curiosity, I asked her what the review had said. She told me rat droppings had been found in the food. I thought it was gross, but decided I would eat it anyways because I was feeling adventurous and in a good mood --- like I said, morning person. We got to the restaurant and I was immediately reminded of my home town. I am from Reno, Nevada. Most people know, or think they know, a little bit about Reno, but some things might not be so obvious if you're not from the area. Reno has a lot of breakfast restaurants that are basically diners, but smoking is allowed inside and there are slot machines just outside the dining area and keno sheets at your table. As a child, my parents always told me that gambling was bad and they never gambled, but we always played the keno game whenever we went to these restaurants. We would never bet money of course, but we would circle the numbers we thought would win and then wait excitedly for the screen to tell us how many we got right. Anyways, walking in to the dim sum restaurant immediately brought me back to my childhood of keno games at these diners. Everything about the place was similar to these restaurants: maroon chairs, chaotic waiters, loudspeaker annoucements, TVs left and right. The only difference was the food. And man, was it different. Reno doesn't have much diversity in either its food or its people, so growing up I'd never tried a lot of different types of food. Italian-American, Mexican-American, Chinese-American. I recognized the potstickers at least. Well, I recognized the chicken feet as well, but for different reasons than I recognized the potstickers, if you know what I mean.

The toenailed version looks a little bit too much like the restaurant version in my opinion...

Anyways, I was excited to go to dim sum because I'd never experienced anything like it before. I was even ready to eat some rat droppings! The most exotic dishes I tried were the chicken feet and the cow stomach. Both tasted alright, but the textures were not something I'd jump to revisit. The chicken feet looked too much like what they were and I wasn't entirely comfortable eating something that was made mostly of bone. That actually reminds me of The Omnivore's Dilemma when the author is talking about chicken nuggets and how they've separated chicken we eat from the animal it comes from. Am I just a product of that culture? Do I not want to know what I'm really eating? I didn't think so, but the way I felt about the chicken feet made me question that. Of course, I generally eat a mostly vegetarian and often vegan diet, so I've never been a big fan of meat. In addition, I have this irrational fear of dead things that stems from a traumatic childhood incident, but that's a different story. Anyways, I asked Ashton if she would take some of the edible part of the chicken feet off the bone for me so I wouldn't have to deal with the extreme chicken-ness of the dish, and tried the meat. It was alright. The flavor was good, but the texture reminded me of the skin of the chicken that you get on a barbecued leg or thigh, which I suppose is pretty much what it was. I'm not a big fan of that texture, so I don't think I'd want to order that again. The cow stomach also had a nice taste, but the texture was like that of fat. I absolutely hate that kind of texture, so I didn't really like the stomach and had trouble swallowing it. It's funny, I love the texture of squid which is similarly chewy, but the stomach was hard to stomach. (haha) The rest of the dishes were pretty similar to each other: lots of little steamed dumplings filled with pork or shrimp. It was weird to eat such a salty breakfast. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I generally eat things that are on the sweet side for breakfast like cereal, fruit, rice with sugar, etc. All that salt in the morning made me feel a bit sick afterwards... It was a great experience though.
After we ate, it was time to go to the fortune cookie factory!! It's funny because Americans (or at least the ones I know) get so excited about fortune cookies, and you never see them anywhere but Chinese restaurants. However, in China these cookies don't really exist. They were invented in America, though their origin is debated between three different stories.

The first is that Chinese immigrant David Jung (founder of Hong Kong Noodle Company) created the cookie for poor people. He would put an uplifting note in the cookie to give them hope. David Jung lived in Los Angeles at the time.
The second is that a Japanese immigrant Makoto Hagiwara (designer of the Japanese Tea Gardens in GGP) created the cookie with thank-you notes inside to thank people who had supported him when he was fired from his job for being Japanese.
The third is that they were modeled after mooncakes which were used in the 13th and 14th centuries in China to pass messages to organize an uprising against the Mongols. The mooncakes were normally filled with lotus paste, but the people left out the paste and filled them with secret messages.

After the fortune cookie factory, we were pretty much done with our field trip. It had left us with a lot to think about. Personally, I was still excited about fortune cookies. I researched them to find out their history and see if there was a way to make them at home. I also figured out how those women were folding the cookies so quickly! Although I haven't had the chance to make these yet, I found a recipe that looks pretty promising, so I'm going to post it here!

Fortune Cookies

Ingredients:
2 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 teaspoons water

Directions:
1. Write fortunes on pieces of paper that are 3 1/2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 9-X-13 inch baking sheets.

2. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the egg white, vanilla extract, almond extract and vegetable oil until frothy, but not stiff.

3. Sift the flour, cornstarch, salt and sugar into a separate bowl. Stir the water into the flour mixture.

4. Add the flour into the egg white mixture and stir until you have a smooth batter. The batter should not be runny, but should drop easily off a wooden spoon.
Note: if you want to dye the fortune cookies, add the food coloring at this point, stirring it into the batter. For example, I used 1/2 teaspoon green food coloring to make green fortune cookies.

5. Place level tablespoons of batter onto the cookie sheet, spacing them at least 3 inches apart. Gently tilt the baking sheet back and forth and from side to side so that each tablespoon of batter forms into a circle 4 inches in diameter.

6. Bake until the outer 1/2-inch of each cookie turns golden brown and they are easy to remove from the baking sheet with a spatula (14 - 15 minutes).

7. Working quickly, remove the cookie with a spatula and flip it over in your hand. Place a fortune in the middle of a cookie. To form the fortune cookie shape, fold the cookie in half, then gently pull the edges downward over the rim of a glass, wooden spoon or the edge of a muffin tin. Place the finished cookie in the cup of the muffin tin so that it keeps its shape. Continue with the rest of the cookies.

Another good site to look at is here. It tells you some insider's tricks for how to make the cookies well. Good luck! Post pictures if you end up making them! I will make them eventually, I promise... Just as soon as I get the chance to take a breath!

Make A Delicious Meal and Document It!

2009-04-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

It was the part of Eating San Francisco that I had been waiting for all semester - the part where we get to cook! Cooking is one of my favorite things to do, especially when the recipes are vegan. Vegan cooking is challenging and it feels good to feed people, have them compliment the flavor, and then tell them that what they are eating is vegan. Many people have either had bad experiences with vegan food or have an illogical fear of vegan food and think it will taste "healthy" or flavorless. To prove them wrong feels good on its own, but what's even better is to show them that delicious food can indeed be made without supporting the corrupted meat, egg, and dairy industries. Sometimes it can be a pain to avoid these products because they are so engrained in our restaurants, recipes, and thought about food. However, learning to cook vegan food takes away the need for animal products, which never hurts.

When we were assigned to make a delicious meal and eat it, my friend Jessie and I looked at each other and knew we had to make it together. Jessie and I have been friends since middle school, when we met on the Little League field where our younger brothers were playing baseball. Lately, however, we had been seeing far too little of each other, and cooking was the perfect activity to do together to play a little catch up. Jessie and I had recently gotten lunch together at a place called Twilight Cafe near campus, and since then Jessie had been craving falafel like crazy. It was meant to be: falafel was the dish we were destined to make.
We decided to invite our boyfriends over and cook for them to share the love. I was apprehensive because falafel is generally a fried food and large amounts of oil near flames frighten me. Luckily, both of our boyfriends are EMTs, so I felt pretty safe. We started by putting some chickpeas in my food processor with parsley, onions, garlic, and some spices.

Parsley! (Super flattering picture, I know!)

Here's what it looked like once we blended it all together!

We then shaped them into little falafel cookies!

And fried them in a big scary pan of oil!

Then put them on a towel to drain...

To wrap it all up, we put tomatoes, lettuce, and tahini sauce in a pita and added our fried creation! Here's how delicious it looked!

But nothing's complete without good friends!

A Day of Food!

2009-03-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

Our most recent project for ESF is to document a day of eating. This assignment, though fun, could not have taken place at a worse time for me, considering finals and the utter lack of time to make food. I'm sure we all share the same feelings, but have all sucked it up and made some amazing blog posts. Lately I have been very interested in reducing packaging, so I decided to add that component to my post to take a look at what kind of waste I produce in a day, and to inspire others to perhaps do the same. Here's what I ate today:

I woke up at 5am this morning in order to go study for a midterm. I'm a firm believer in eating a good breakfast every morning, and get quite cranky if I don't. I'd had Trader Joe's free range eggs the past couple of days, and after reading the linked article, I had sort of lost my appetite for them. I looked around my kitchen to consider my options, and found this:

A potato. I don't normally eat potatoes for breakfast, but I'd had the potatoes for a few days now and since I'm going to be gone during spring break, I decided I ought to use it. Since I don't own a functioning computer, I used my IPhone to search for "Breakfast Potato recipes" on Google and found a fairly simple one.

Easy Breakfast Potatoes:

The recipe called for 2 large russet potatoes, but all I had were baking potatoes, so I just used one big one of those. I then poked holes in it with a fork and microwaved it for 3 minutes. Then I diced it.

Then I put some olive oil in a frying pan...

And tossed it with the potatoes, rosemary, and sage ( I had to substitute sage for parsley because I didn't have any).

I let it cook while covered for a bit...

And then browned the sides by stirring the potatoes over higher heat. Then I put it in a bowl...

...Added some ketchup and ate it!

Potatoes are very filling, and I headed off for my early morning study sesh feeling very satisfied. After my morning classes, I wanted to stay on campus to continue studying, so I headed to the cafeteria to see what I could find. The vegan stand was serving vegan mushroom stroganoff with sides of steamed broccoli and russet potatoes. I wasn't really in the mood for more potatoes, but I got the dish anyways and accompanied it with one of those delicious dark-colored mini loaf things. It was good, but again, very filling.

After studying for awhile, I headed out to the media lab to work on my audio production project. I didn't end up getting out until around 9:30, so when I got home I need to make a quick dinner: Oatmeal with brown sugar and milk!

Throughout the day I was drinking tap water from my REUSABLE bottle. I don't normally drink anything other than water, which sounds healthy, but really I think it's because I'm cheap and don't like high fructose corn syrup. (It's made from corn, silly!) Speaking of high fructose corn syrup, I'd like to ask you to check out the labels on the bottled drinks sold at USF. It's actually quite a challenge to find anything without high fructose corn syrup!
I also ate a banana while studying, but I don't have a picture of it.

Condensed List of Food with Packaging/Waste:

BREAKFAST:
- 1 baking potato (bought in bulk, no packaging)
- 1 pinch dried rosemary (came in small plastic container)
- 1 pinch ground sage (came in small plastic container)
- 1 pinch salt (came in large paper container)
- 1 pinch pepper (came in small paper container)
- 2 Tbsp ketchup (came in plastic container)

So for breakfast, there was several ways to eliminate the waste I produced. Here's how:
- rosemary: comes fresh and dried in bulk
- sage: comes fresh and dried in bulk
- salt: comes in bulk
- pepper: comes in bulk
- ketchup: can be made by hand

LUNCH:
- meal made by Bon Appetit (got it for here, so no to-go packaging)

This meal was difficult to judge because it was made by Bon Appetit and I don't know what kind of packaging they use.

DINNER:
- oats (bought in bulk, no packaging)
- water (from the tap)
- brown sugar (came in plastic bag)
- soy milk (came in paper carton)

Here's how I could improve:
- brown sugar: comes in bulk
- soy milk: this is a difficult one, but the good news is that paper milk cartons can be composted/used to hold food scraps for compost, so it wont go completely to waste!

I've been paying a lot of attention to eliminating waste. Here are my rules of thumb:
1. When possible, buy in bulk. Bulk purchase becomes much easier at Rainbow Grocery.
2. When buying in bulk is not possible or is extremely inconvenient, buy products in recyclable or reusable containers.
3. Actually USE the containers when you're done with their original contents.

Anyways... If you happen to read my post and have any questions about how you can eliminate your own waste, add a comment and I'll be happy to reply and help you out! Thanks for reading and have a great spring break!

Mission Project

2009-03-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

The Mission is a part of San Francisco that is home to many different cultures. The neighborhood primarily features cuisine from many different Latin American countries, though there are also various other countries represented through restaurants. In addition to traditional and authentic fare, there is also the strange cuisine that seems to pop up anywhere Americans get involved. _____-American food. Place the name of any country or region in the blank and you are likely to have a whole new type of food, unique even from its original country or region. Today I want to focus on Mexican-American food to talk about a type of dish that we should all be familiar with: the San Francisco-style burrito, also known as the Mission-style burrito. This burrito is massive. You might have stumbled into the grocery store after devouring one of these tasty meals and, wanting to create your own burrito at home, encountered the tortilla aisle to find that the torillas labeled "burrito size" are pitifully small and unfit for your purposes. Terrible, I know. San Francisco-style burritos are made specially with extra large tortillas that are steamed to make them ultra durable. However, another important aspect of these burritos, one that is key to their success, is their foil wrapping. Not only is this wrapping necessary in order to hold your burrito together, it also makes a neat little carrying case for meals on-the-go. You simply tear the foil as you go to expose more and more of the tasty torpedo! The basic ingredients in a San Francisco-style burrito include Spanish rice, your choice of black/pinto/refried beans, salsa, and your choice of meat. La Cumbre is a taqueria on Valencia Street and 16th St in the Mission district whose informational pamphlet notes the "Mission-style" burrito as one of its specialties. I visited this restaurant during my research for this project, and it was amazing. I got a black bean, rice, salsa, and guacomole burrito with mild salsa that was out of this world.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I love San Francisco-style burritos, which is why I wanted to learn some of the recipes for the ingredients of these tasty treats. Below I've listed two recipes that will assist you in making some delicious San Francisco-style burritos at home. Don't forget the foil wrap!

SPANISH RICE

Ingredients:
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 cups medium or long-grain white rice
- 3 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth if you want to make it vegan/vegetarian)
- 1 heaping Tbsp tomato paste
- pinch of oregano
- 1 tsp salt

1. In a large skillet brown rice in olive oil, medium/high heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook onion rice mixture, stirring frequently, about 4 minutes, or until onions are softened.

2. In a separate sauce pan bring stock to a simmer. Add tomato sauce, oregano, and salt. Add rice to broth. Bring to a simmer. Cover. Lower heat and cook 15-25 minutes, depending on the type of rice and the instructions on the rice package. Turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

REFRIED BEANS

Ingredients:
- 2 cups black or pinto beans (I like black!)
- 3 Tbsp olive or sesame oil
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1-2 tsp cumin
- 1-2 tsp salt
- 1-2 tsp black pepper

1. Heat the oil over medium heat, add the onion, and sauté until soft, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and continue sautéing for another minute or two.

2. Stir in the beans, spices, and ½ c of reserved soaking liquid. Mash the beans into the liquid. If they seem too dry, add more liquid. Taste and adjust the spices.

PICO DE GALLO

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups tomatoes, seeded and diced
- 1/4 cup red onion, diced
- 1 Tbsp jalapenos, diced
- 1 Tbsp garlic, minced
- juice of 2 limes
- 2 Tbsp cilantro
- salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl

These recipes are easy and will get you started with the building blocks of your amazing burrito! Good luck, and don't forget to shop at Rainbow Grocery, which is also located in the Mission!

North Beach Project

2009-02-23T21:13:00.001-08:00

The Beats of North Beach

North Beach is home to the San Francisco Beat movement. According to Wikipedia, the Beat Movement started in the early 1950's with a group of writers. These writers challenged traditional American values, experimented with drugs and new forms of sexual expression, and created a new, rambling style of poetry. The main themes in Beat poetry seem to be both skepticism of the mainstream mindset and the rejection of widely accepted cultural norms.

Mainstream American Food Culture

In the United States, we like to get what we want, when we want, how we want it, and these desires translate into our food culture. When visiting a restaurant, we are easily angered if our dish takes too long to come out of the kitchen. We want to be pampered by the waitstaff, taste the flavors we came to the restaurant expecting to taste, receive convenient to-go packaging upon request, and be in an environment that is comfortable and familiar to us. This is our culture, but I propose we take action and...

Become Food Beats!!

The Beats challenged American traditions, but they may have neglected food culture in their rebellion. Let's pick up where they left off! Using food as our main focus, let's challenge American ideals and change the way we look at food. Let's review the most prominent aspects of mainstream American food culture and discuss how we can challenge it:

1. Packaging
In the United States, almost everything we buy is encased in large amounts of needless packaging. We ask for to-go boxes made of cardboard and plastic, use paper bags at the grocery store, and buy things like this:

and this...

So, in order to be Food Beats, I think we need to start cutting down on the packaged goods we purchase. Buying items in bulk definitely helps to cut down on packaging. If you are able to convert your kitchen entirely to bulk, your pantry might look something like this:

Ahh...the brand-free goodness of it all!

2. Imported and Unseasonal Goods

Italians tend to eat foods that are in season and Italian cookbooks are often organized by season. Americans want to eat exactly what they are in the mood for, and most of the time, that means eating food items that are not in season or grown locally. This results in an unnecessary amount of gas being wasted on transportation of goods. As Food Beats, we should question our "need" for imported goods and experiment with local purchasing habits. This can be done by buying items at local farmer's markets, joining a CSA, or shopping at Rainbow Grocery in the Mission to buy local goods.

3. Fast Food

Americans eat a lot of fast food and pre-made items. We are obsessed with efficiency and speed. To incorporate the Beat ideals into our lives, we've got to experiment. The original Beats did this with drugs, but I'm suggesting we do this with food and start cooking! This will allow us to tailor our foods to our individual tastes, avoid flavor norms, and slow down our over-efficient minds so we can enjoy life. I like to cook vegan food, so I'm going to post a couple of my favorite recipe websites:

1. Random Vegan Recipes
2. Vegan Food

In addition, I'd like to post my favorite vegan chocolate chip/oatmeal cookie recipe, compliments of my cookbook called Vegan With A Vengeance. I just added some oats because they're delicious!

NOTE TO NON-COOKS: DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES ONLY TAKE ABOUT 20 MINUTES OVERALL TO MAKE!! WHY WAIT? IT'S SIMPLE AND TASTY!!

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 cup vegan margarine (I like Earth Balance, which can be found at above-mentioned Rainbow Grocery)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (these are usually vegan, but check the ingredients for milk!)

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Cream together the margarine and sugar until fluffy.
Add the molasses and vanilla.
Add the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt, and mix well.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Make a bunch of little balls and place them 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the bottom edges are just golden brown.
Let cool or just devour them! I've done both, and though instant devouring tends to burn the mouth, each option has its perks! :)