the scent of green bananas

20041222

Labels: recipe

20041221

recipe: "lisa kudrow has nothing to do with these" oatmeal cookies

i'm taking cookie requests (anyone? anyone?), and thud asked me to bake oatmeal cookies so i did. he wanted chewy and raisiny, so i looked for a recipe online, because i don't normally do chewy and raisiny. one of my favourite baking resources is angela's blog, a spoonful of sugar, which is actually one of the first food blogs i ever stumbled across. for imbb10: cookie swap!, angela made the sort of oatmeal cookie that i think i was after.

the thing is, the recipe--while seemingly the one i wanted--originally came from a cookbook published in the marketing frenzy of a television show i'd rather not promote, so in the interest of non-promotion despite the possibility of sabotage, i altered the recipe just enough to make it almost not the recipe. do i hate the show that much? no, but i resent the amount of money spent on its production and i think of the better, quality shows that could have continued with the just one year of salary of one of "stars". anyway, i never really liked phoebe, but i really like lisa kudrow after seeing her in "the opposite of sex" (one of my all-time fave flicks), and i'm pretty sure she had nothing to do with the published oatmeal cookie recipe. and i'm positive she has nothing to do with this cookie, either, so hence the name.

"lisa kudrow has nothing to do with these" oatmeal cookies
adapted from ph.fab.oat.ck

1 1/2 c. (350g) unsalted butter, softened
1 lb. (454g) dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 cups (340g) rolled oats
2 1/2 cups (320g) plain or all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
10 oz (283.5g) dried currants (that's one box of sun-maid® zante currants)

preheat oven to 375˚F/190˚C. cream butter and sugar until lighter and fluffy. add eggs and vanilla extract and incorporate well. combine all the dry ingredients except the currants in a separate bowl, mix well. add to the butter mixture until just combined, then fold in the currants. scoop out a heaping tablespoonful and drop onto ungreased cookie sheets, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes (i baked them for 12 on average, when i didn't forget about them because i was watching "how clean is your house?", which you should never watch when you are baking with currants because then you think a tick or a fly could fall into those cookies and no one would ever know.). cool on a rack.

despite cutting the sugar and the dried fruit by a third, they came out chewy, curranty, and delish. a little dark, though, because of the dark brown sugar, but i don't think that detracts from their loveliness.

and no, i haven't found a bug in them. yet.

Labels: recipe

20041220

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four more years!

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lunch at halo halo grill.

update january 2007-restaurant closed since ever since

i hate eating at food courts. granted, the food courts in the malls here are slightly more interesting that the ones in the mainland, but i'm convinced a regular diet of mall food will kill my tastebuds and eventually, me. however, i have a limited amount of time to forage for grub at lunch these days, so i have to either plan out my meal (snort) or go somewhere fast.

lately, i've been going to i sengsong chamorro, or, the chamorro village. it's a government subsidized tourist trap basically, with shops and food stalls in a lovely setting by hågatña bay. yes, a mall. but not a particularly productive one (government entity, remember?). it's probably best known for the wednesday night market, but most of the stalls are open throughout the week.

last week, i visited the newly opened halo halo grill. halo halo (hah-loh hah-loh) is a tagalog word literally meaning "mix-mix", and is the name of a tasty ice and milk confection. halo halo grill is owned and run by bob branconnier, a veteran hotel chef/CIA (culinary institute not central intelligence--you never know on guam) alumn and his wife (? i assume) alice, and it has a small but interesting menu. cheap, too, as there is nothing on the menu over $4.

on my first visit, i had the most popular item on the menu: the adobo burrito. filipino-style adobo is cooked, and the meat--pork or chicken--is shredded and layered with lettuce and monterey jack cheese on a giant tortilla, wrapped burrito style, then grilled and served with homemade pico de gallo and tortilla chips. the burrito is so big that you can't properly close the styrofoam container in comes in. there's very little in the spicing of the meat (this one was pork) to suggest that it was adobo (not particularly garlicky nor vinegary), but it was flavourful and delicious all the same. combined with the lettuce and the cheese, the whole thing was very much like eating a california style carnitas (braised pork) burrito. very tasty and very filling. so much so that i didn't have enough room to try their signature dessert--of course, halo halo.

today i returned, and had the newest addition to the menu, the crab sandwich. for 4 buckaroonies, i wasn't expecting real crab, and whaddya know, i didn't get it. however, they don't stint on that krab stuff--it was a substantial patty of krabesque flakes coated in panko breadcrumbs, then deep fried and served on a butter-grilled bun with lettuce, tomato, and some nicely pika jalapeños. the sandwich (and i assume all the grilled sandwiches) are served with nicely spiced natural cut french fries--seriously, some of the best french fries i've had on this island of deep-fried diving. the crabless krabcake was good, it reminded me of those funky japanese fishcakes that look almost natural but aren't, but it didn't quite hold up to the memory of the adobo burrito. still, it was better and more substantial than the tasteless fish sandwiches at most fast food outlets. and yes, it was completely filling so i didn't get the halo halo today, either.

really, there isn't that much on the limited menu, but that's probably a good thing, because at this point, i like 20% of the menu. i'll be back to try the other 80%, including that halo halo.

halo halo grill
at the chamorro village
hågatña
477.4250.

Labels: agaña , closed , restaurant

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jam thumbprint cookies

Labels: recipe

20041219

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lilikoi cheesecake

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apigigi

20041218

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recipe: bill granger's brownies

Labels: recipe

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holiday cheer at cup and saucer

20041215

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how many?!

Labels: blogs , food blogs

20041214

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snack mountain

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stuffed ampalaya

20041213

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hailyn's cookies

ginger snaps

friday night, somewhere at the tail end of my mangover, dominic, pinch and i had dinner with hailyn, a very lovely young woman visiting the island. she was leaving the next day, so we met for dinner at firefly bistro, and i would say that overall it was a lovely meal. i did document it, sort of, but all the photos came out shaky and funky, so i guess i hadn't completely recovered. i am working on repairing the situation, so hopefully i can post something in the future.

i had planned on sending some cookies off with hailyn for her journey (possibly to appease her because we're complete psychos?) , but when i woke up in the morning, the first thing i was told was that a typhoon was coming, and all thoughts of baking flew out of my head. sorry, miss! i had the dough and everything. luckily, tropical storm lala or tala or tralala is passing without much fanfare, so the cookies i had planned on baking i *did* end up baking tonight: chez panisse's ginger snaps, as found on feeding dexygus, which renee posted for imbb #10: cookie swap (i'd provide a link, but i can't effing figure out where it is on ismyblogburning.com--there are waaaaay too many things going on there, people!). the cookies are getting rave reviews from everyone who has tried them, and i love gingersnaps, so i knew i had to try them.

and so i did. and here they are. hm. i don't have the knife skills to cut the cookies less than 1/8th of an inch as specified, but i came close. the cookies are lovely, crisp, and buttery, and the aroma in the house is wonderful--spicy and warm and holiday cheering. and the taste? well. they are molasses-rich, buttery and the spices certainly have depth but...but...i don't know. they just aren't kicking it for me. ?? i used freshly ground herbs when possible, and a new container of ground ginger, but they're kinda...eeep, i can't believe i'm saying this...sorry renee, sorry alice waters....they are a little weak. maybe my tastebuds are tweaked towards more pika spiciness, but these seem more subtle than i was led to believe. not that subtle is bad, not in the least bit, but i wanted a bit of oomph, baby. i will definitely try these again, but i plan on doubling the spices, and adding freshly grated ginger and possibly even some chopped chilis in it. oooh. ooooh. i'll let you know.

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hey reid!

20041211

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mangover

a couple of weeks ago, i suffered from a mild case of food poisoning. not much to report, but curiously, right afterwards, i craved tomato ketchup, and normally i loathe tomato ketchup. i wanted a bowl of ketchup with french fries on the side. a glass of ketchup with a small club sandwich on the side. a smidgen of ketchup with a dollop of ketchup on top of a vat of ketchup, please. curious.

curiouser still: on thursday, i met a ten foot tall giant. we went to a bar called fishbowl and had a couple of drinks and it was a very pleasant meeting. in the morning, i thought it might have been a hallucination, but i had a very real hangover (despite the gallon of water i drank before bed, natch), so maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. i woke up absolutely craving something--not ketchup, but mangoes this time. mango mania.

i searched the fridge, to no avail. i did, however, find some mango popsicles in the freezer, and they were nice--frozen fruit juice on the outside, and a tasty mango jelly center. mmmmm. cool and comforting, but not really sating me. since i had to mosey on over to work, i decided to make a quick detour to the shopping center near the office, and go to sol juice for a smoothie. of course i chose "mango madness", made from fresh mangoes, guava juice and lime. icey and delish.

yes, i know. i should really clean off my desk sometime. anyway, i sipped on this and water all morning, but i still had a throbbing ache in my head, and the smoothie wasn't mangolicious enough. i ran a few errands, and chanced upon a café near my bank, the brown bag café. it was here i picked up a mango salad, made with romaine salad, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, mangoes, dried cranberries, pecans, and a little goat cheese, with a raspberry vinaigrette.

the mangoes in the salad weren't quite ripe, but they were sweet and tender, and the greens were crisp and fresh. my body wasn't receptive to dairy products so i left off the cheese, and i didn't miss it, as the dried cranberries and vinaigrette added a zing i sorely needed that day.

i also had a chicken mango wrap, made with grilled chicken breast, cucumbers, bean sprouts, shredded lettuce and super-ripe mango, all wrapped in a sundried tomato tortilla. it was served with a wasabi-lime mayonnaise that lent a light zestiness to this tasty wrap. definitely hit the spot. hangover mostly gone, the mango madness had passed.

honest, he didn't look so blurry at the time

almost. i had more errands, so later that afternoon, i dropped in on the bestseller café, and planned on getting a mango tart, but unfortunately it wasn't available. norbert nicely suggested some tea might help, so i just went on my merry way, with a lovely cup of tropicana tea made with black tea, and flavoured with kiwi, passionfruit, lime, and yes, more mangoes!

fishbowl
acanta mall
pale san vitores road
tumon
671.649.1291

sol juice
gpo, upper concourse
tamuning

brown bag café
in the old dfs/shell offices, by guam greyhound park
tamuning
671.647.0188

bestseller café
inside bestseller bookstore
gpo
671.647.7233

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the universal language of blog

20041208

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pastel de tres leches with a holiday twist

20041205

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eating my way through aki matsuri

20041203

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dairy bread

i'm back to baking. never mind the batch of meringues i forgot in the oven before i left (shhhhhhh! bleah.) i brought back a favourite cookbook from my la collection, "the breakfast book" by marion cunningham, mainly because chika reminded me of its existence, and after flicking through it again, i realised there were quite a few recipes i was curious about. not necessarily about the taste, but from some quirky aspect or ingredient in them.

one of these recipes is a yeast bread recipe simply called dairy bread. it is basically a white bread loaf, only loaded with dairy products, including cottage cheese. the thing that piqued my interest was the addition of a scant 1/4 teaspoonful of ground ginger, which was believed to help the yeast work more effectively. hm. i can't say if it did or not--i suspect the teaspoon of sugar added to the proofing yeast had more efficacy. however, because the bread is so bland (it really tastes like baked milk--depending on your fondness for dairy products, this could be a good or bad thing), i found that tiny bit of ginger lent a peculiar bite to the crust. again, don't know if this is a good or bad thing. otherwise, the crumb was soft but springy and it makes a lovely toast.

i did have a little trouble with the directions--it says to add only enough flour to make it manageable, but later it says to knead it until it is smooth and elastic. to make it smooth and elastic, i had to add considerably more flour than it took to make it manageable (a whopping 2 cups more), but even with those two extra cups, the loaves were a little flooby. it was perhaps a mistake to read a novel with a character who laments the loss of her teenage cleavage while i was making these loaves. you only need to look at the final product to see why the only thing that came to mind was "support bra".

dairy bread (from "the breakfast book" by marion cunningham, pg. 7)

1/2 cup warm water
2 packets dry yeast
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cup milk, warmed
1 cup cottage cheese
2 tbsp butter, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp salt
6 cups all-purpose flour, approximately

put the wam water, yeast, ginger and 1 tsp sugar in a large mixing bowl. stir and let the mixture dissolve for 5 minutes. add the milk, cottage cheese, butter, the remaining 2 tbsp sugar, salt and 3 cups flour. beat until smooth. add only enough additional flour to make the dough manageable. turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 2 mminutes. let the dough rest for 10 minutes, resume kneading until smooth and elastic.
place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with cling film. let the dough double in bulk, about 1 hour. punch down and divide in half. form two round loaves or place in two loaf pans, cover loosely and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour. sprinkle a little flour on top and cut a cross on the top of each loaf. place in an oven preheated to 375˚F, and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the bread is golden on top.