Chez Shai

I have been posting from www.chezshai.com/Food for a few months now.
It's awfully boring to look at, but the material is good and the look will improve eventually. You should check it out!

Shaina

What's a cook to do?

I'm living in temporary housing for the next two weeks and after catching up on all of my cooking blogs, I'm starting to go a little crazy. Nearly all of my kitchen stuff is in boxes. I was planning on purchasing paper plates and plastic cutlery but I haven't gotten around to it yet so all I've managed to scavange up is four bowls, a plastic fork, and a plastic knife. Needless to say, we've been cooking dinner at friend's places a lot lately. Last night for dessert, Brian was eating some gelato and I was eating my favorite breakfast/snack/dessert these days; Traderspoint Creamery yogurt (which comes in a wonderful glass bottle, above), sprinkled with granola, dried cranberries, and a little bit of honey. To accomplish this feat of eating concurrently, we had to pass our one plastic fork back and forth, licking well to clean between bites. Eventually I resorted to just going at the bowl with a finger. Quite barbaric.

Some of the things I want to make right now, but can't: Coq a Vin, Boeuf Bourguignon, and Tarte Tatin. Why so many French dishes? Well, maybe because I saw Julie and Julia yesterday. Or maybe just because they're delicious. Hopefully in two weeks I can work on sending some more dishes your way- light summery ones and buttery French ones alike!

Last week I was in Maine where I valiantly attempted to love fresh lobster (I get psyched out by their little faces) and got some cooking tips from a couple of deliciously domestic ladies in Brian's family. I also baked up a storm despite the heat wave that has been boiling the East Coast lately. I made my latest favorite, the Wining Hearts and Minds cake again as well as Bobby's Caramel Cake. I hope to get more creative and develop some of my own recipes some time in the near future, but right now I'm caught up in everyone else's delicious ideas and without the proper equiment to execute any recipes at all!

In Other News...

I'm moving!!

I've decided to purchase a domain name and make a real website to feature my cooking, travels and photography. This website will be called Chez Shai, but don't try to visit it yet- there's nothing there!!

When I figure out all this web hosting and design stuff, I'll let you know!

Spaghetti Pie and More!

It's been way too long but I still don't really feel like blogging. I'm sorry!! I've been keeping busy volunteering for the fabulous Community Servings until my classes begin. I'm still cooking, I'm just a bit behind on writing about it.

As promised, here are some pictures of my spaghetti pie:


Flaky and delicious.

Some veggies would really make this tasty!

Other things I've been baking:

Orangette's Winning Hearts and Mind's Cake - a deliciously decadent cake for chocolate lovers.

And some cute little berry cobblers by the Pioneer Woman!

These are some of my favorite food bloggers. I hope you like their stuff!

Dinner Tonight: Spaghetti Pie

I was entranced by a meal that I had at Brian's sister-in-law's house one night a year or two ago and that meal was the deliciously carb-ful Spaghetti Pie. It was a flaky brown drum sized crust surrounding steaming spaghetti and meat sauce. Since then, I have been looking online for something similar but have only come across spaghetti al forno (baked spaghetti), spaghetti casseroles, and worst of all, some kind of pie with cheese and marinara filling and a spaghetti crust! Hmm...

Luckily, after I pulled a few google tricks out of my sleeves, I found a recipe on vegweb for a crusty, spaghetti-filled "pie". The recipe, which can be found here, was not so much a recipe as a set of guidelines which when distilled reads:

1. Make/Buy a crust
2. Put half the crust in a casserole dish
3. Fill the dish with cooked pasta, sauce, seasonings, and veggies/meat
4. Cover with more crust
5. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown (30-45 min)

There werent even amounts for most of the ingredients! The exception was the crust. This came in handy because my local grocery store was out of the pre-made kind. I made the crust in about 3 minutes using the recipe listed:

7/8 c. oil
1/2 c. ice water
3 c. self-rising pastry flour
(I never buy the stuff- For each 1 c. all-purpose flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder & 1/2 tsp salt.)

I filled it with spaghetti and meat sauce and it's currently baking. I hope it's as good as my first one!

Photo Quality & Artichoke Dip

I should really edit my pictures before I post them here. The difference may be subtle, but food definitely looks more professional and more tasty when edited! Here's an example of some artichoke dip I made a couple days ago for lunch. Before:


After:


And the recipe...

Artichoke Dip
All measurements are approximate.

Dip:
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 c. mayonnaise
2 oz. softened cream cheese
A few dashes of red pepper
salt & pepper

Topping:
a handful of grated cheese
a sprinkling of breadcrumbs

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Spread in a pan or cute little ramekins for individual portions (pictured). Top with topping. Bake at 350 degrees until warmed through and browned on top.
Serve with your favorite chips.

Use Your Noodle!

I can't believe I haven't posted about my noodle experiments yet!

Since Italy, I have been driven to make various kinds of noodles, mainly out of curiosity and also because fresh pasta is delicious and requires very few ingredients. Brian got me a pasta maker back in December but I only got to use it once or twice before skipping town so I'm trying to make up for that now.

With a pasta maker, noodles can be as simple as mix thoroughly (2 c flour, 3 eggs), roll (insert pasta maker here), and roll again to cut, but for some reason I like to pick the really difficult kinds of pasta...

Like penne. With the penne noodles I had to mix, roll, cut into squares, and roll each square point to point around the back of a wooden spoon.

The result, covered in some doctored up tomato sauce from a jar, was pretty good but only moderately better than the $0.80 boxed kind and a LOT more labor. Still I was proud.

Then I made gnocchi. This was actually slightly less arduous then the penne but even less rewarding. I used the method in Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Basically, you boil 1.5 lbs small potatoes until tender (about 20 minutes), peel off the skins while hot, rice the potatoes (I don't have a ricer, so I grated), mix with up to 1.5 c flour, then roll into long cylinders and cut into 3/4" sections. Roll each noodle on a fork while making an indent on the other side with your index finger. That step may be optional. Boil for 10 +/-3 seconds and consume.

The result seemed right on the outside but was sort of mushy and gummy on the inside. Brian and I agreed that this probably wasn't my fault and is maybe just how homemade gnocchi turn out sometimes. He said the ones he ate at Julienne in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago weren't too different. (I highly recommend Julienne, by the way, except maybe for their gnocchi.) We left the rest out to dry overnight to see if that helps, though I'm not counting on it.

Anyway, I didn't want to eat them or make him eat them either, so we went with some boxed pasta instead. It was the perfect compliment to my homemade pesto (recipe to come)- much more fitting!