Spiced pumpkin bread

Sometimes you just get the craving for pumpkin, right?

I found this recipe from the online site of the cooking magazine that is titled after the classic French phrase. See the full recipe here http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spiced-Pumpkin-Bread-840. I made some substitutions though, to make it healthier: Instead of the specified sugar and vegetable oil, I used just one cup of sugar, 1.2 cups of apple sauce, and 1/3 cup of oil. Also, I replaced one half of the flour with whole wheat flour.

It turned out very well, and the coworkers liked it a lot.

Sour orange Curry of Trout and vegetables

Unlike many of the Thai curries you find in the US, this one doesn't have any coconut milk and is quite a bit thinner as a result. The recipe comes from "Thai food" by David Thomson, which I found in the San Carlos library.

Review: acceptable; the curry is so thin that once you pour it over the rice, all of the liquid goes immediately to the bottom of the bowl and it becomes something like rice soup. The recipe is quite easy, though (except for endlessly pounding the curry paste with a mortar and pestle). Also, I used chicken broth, which I think was a little too heavy for the dish; Fish broth would be much better I think.

The orange color basically comes from the curry paste, which is as follows:
-- 5 dried long red chilies, deseeded soaked and drained (I used Arbol chilies, which are around 15,000 to 30,000 on the Scoville scale, which is somewhat tamer compared to the Thai chilies)
-- large pinch of salt
-- 1 tablespoon chopped galangal (Thai Ginger)
-- 3 tablespoons chopped red shallot
-- 2 teaspoons shrimp paste (this stuff is super potent and very salty)

The overall procedure is:
-- bring about 3 cups of stock to a boil
-- add about 50 g of fish fillet (any fresh water will do) to the broth and simmer briefly until cooked; remove the fish and work into the curry paste
-- return the stock to a boil, season with tamarind water, sugar and fish sauce
-- add the curry paste and return to a boil
-- add the vegetables according to the cooking time (options include bamboo shoots, snake beans, Chinese cabbage, a staircase, tomatoes, spinach)
-- add the remainder of the fish (100 g-200 g) and finish cooking

Roasted poblano with polenta

I needed to figure out a way to use up my poblano pepper that had been sitting around. I followed the process described in my Mexican food cookbook for char-roasting these peppers:
1) Put it over the gas flame on your stove until blackened and blistered.
2) Throw the pepper in a plastic bag and seal it up and wait 10 minutes for it to steam through
3) use your fingers to peel away the blackened outer layer.

After making the polenta and sautéing the red bell peppers, I assembled the whole thing and threw it under the broiler to melt the cheese.

French onion soup

Recipe source: http://www.cookography.com/2008/the-best-french-onion-soup-ever

Disclaimer: the picture below is from halfway to the process. Sadly, there is no picture of the final product (see the link above, though).

Here's a copy of the recipe:


The Best French Onion Soup
From: Cook’s Illustrated

Serves 6
Notes:
For the best flavor, make the soup a day or 2 in advance. Alternatively, the onions can be prepared through step 1, cooled in the pot, and refrigerated for up to 3 days before proceeding with the recipe.Ingredients:
Soup
3 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces
6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices (Make sure you get Yellow)
Table salt
2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
1/2 cup dry sherry
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (They recommend Swanson Certified Organic Free Range Chicken Broth )
2 cups beef broth (They recommend Pacific Beef Broth)
6 sprigs fresh thyme , tied with kitchen twine
1 bay leaf
Ground black pepper
Cheese Croutons
1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices
8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)
Directions:
For the soup:
Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large (at least 7-quart) Dutch oven with a nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter in the pot and add the onions and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, covered, for 1 hour (the onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove the pot from the oven and stir the onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. Return the pot to the oven with the lid slightly ajar and continue to cook until the onions are very soft and golden brown, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours longer, stirring the onions and scraping bottom and sides of pot after 1 hour.
Carefully remove pot from oven and place over medium-high heat. Using oven mitts to handle pot, cook onions, stirring frequently and scraping bottom and sides of pot, until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, 15 to 20 minutes, reducing the heat to medium if the onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the pot bottom is coated with a dark crust, roughly 6 to 8 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. (Scrape any fond that collects on spoon back into onions.)
Stir in 1/4 cup water, scraping the pot bottom to loosen crust, and cook until water evaporates and pot bottom has formed another dark crust, 6 to 8 minutes. Repeat process of deglazing 2 or 3 more times, until onions are very dark brown. Stir in the sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until the sherry evaporates, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the broths, 2 cups of water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt, scraping up any final bits of browned crust on bottom and sides of pot.
Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove and discard herbs, then season with salt and pepper.
For the croutons:
While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in single layer on baking sheet and bake in a 400-degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp, and golden at edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.
To serve:
Adjust oven rack 6 inches from broiler element and heat broiler. Set individual broiler-safe crocks on baking sheet and fill each with about 1 3/4 cups soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices (do not overlap slices) and sprinkle evenly with Gruyère. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly around edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

"Green" papaya salad (Thai style)

As you can see, I had some trouble finding a green papaya (supposedly just a standard papaya in the unripe state). The papaya I bought was mostly green on the outside, but ended up being basically right on the inside with light orange flesh. One thing I discovered is that the flesh that is close to the skin is very bitter tasting; thus, you need to slice off a lot as you are removing the outer layer.

One resulting difficulty, was that it was very difficult to "shred" the papaya because it was so soft. I tried to use the Cuisinart, but ended up with very thick strips.

Although untraditional, I served it over a bed of lettuce (dressed lightly with fish sauce!), Which turned out to be a nice touch.

My ingredients:
-- 1.5 cups shredded papaya
-- 1/2 cup green beans
-- 1 medium tomato, chopped coarsely
-- 2 birds eye chilies
-- 3 garlic cloves
-- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
-- 1 or 2 teaspoons of lime juice
-- 1 tablespoon of peanuts
-- 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar

Tom Kha Kai

Recipe source:
a combination of the following:
-- my little green cookbook from the cookery school in Thailand
-- http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipes/r/tomyumkung.htm

Ingredients:
--1 chicken breast, boneless, sliced thin
--Galangal, 5 thin slices
-- coconut milk, 1/4 cup
-- lemongrass, one stem, sliced into rings
-- 4 birds eye chilies
-- lime juice, 1 tablespoon
-- Kaffir lime leaves, 3
-- shiitake mushrooms, 5 thickly sliced
-- fish sauce, 2 tablespoons
-- coriander leaves, approximately 20 chopped coarsely
-- low-salt chicken stock, about 3 cups
-- 1 tablespoon lime juice
-- other vegetables, chopped into medium pieces (eggplant, tomato, etc.)

Procedure:
-- Roughly pound the aromatics (chilies, lemongrass, lime leaves, galangal) with mortar and pestle and add to the stock and simmer for a couple of minutes.
-- Season with the fish sauce and coconut milk
-- add the firm vegetables and simmer until softened
-- add the chicken and the soft vegetables and simmer for just a minute or 2 until cooked
-- remove from heat and add the lime juice and coriander leaves

Outcome:
-- delicious, but not enough lemongrass flavor.
-- very spicy! Perhaps we shouldn't pound chilies so much beforehand
-- perhaps try straining after simmering the aromatics next time to remove all the little chunky bits