August 2, 2012

acute how-to: guacamole 3 ways

Today’s post is all about guacamole because….who doesn’t love it?

Try my basic recipe; lighten it up by reducing the amount of avocado and adding in green peas, or go in a different direction all together with guacamole hummus.

All three recipes have the same basic ingredients and can be easily changed based on your personal preferences. If you like things spicy, add some jalapeno. Or, if you prefer a stronger onion flavor, use red onion rather than green.

If you use fresh ingredients, it’s really hard to go wrong with guacamole!

Ingredients:

  • avocados
  • limes
  • fresh cilantro
  • sea salt
  • green onions
  • green peas
  • Greek yogurt
  • white beans

Basic Recipe

In a large bowl, mash together a few avocados, a large handful of chopped fresh cilantro, the juice from 2-3 limes, and about 1/3 cup of chopped green onions. Mix in a little sea salt to taste and serve.

I like to eat mine with fresh chopped tomatoes on top.

Low-Fat Recipe

Microwave or steam one cup of green peas until tender. Put the peas in a small food processor and process until they no longer resemble peas. Add in one large avocado, a large handful of shopped fresh cilantro, the juice from 2-3 limes, and about 1/3 cup of chopped green onions. Mix in sea salt to taste and serve with fresh tomatoes on top.

Guacamole Hummus

In a food processor add 2/3 cup Greek yogurt, one cup of white beans, one avocado, one garlic clove, a large handful of chopped fresh cilantro, the juice from 2-3 limes, and about 1/3 cup of chopped green onions.

Process until smooth and enjoy with tortilla chips, crackers, or chopped veggies.

 Enjoy!

Filed Under: Acute How-To, The Setting Tagged With: , , 2 Comments
July 27, 2012

tooling around: coming clean

Image via Lehigh Valley with Love. Click for details.

I hate doing dishes. HATE it. It is, in fact, one of the reasons I decided to have a kid.

Okay, that last bit isn’t true. My husband is the one who does the dishes. You see, the rule in our house is “whoever cooks does not clean.” I do a large portion of the cooking, and while I try to rinse and tidy as I go, I mostly avoid the responsibility of post-meal cleanup. I know; it’s a pretty good gig.

But, if you’ve been following along, you know our recently purchased stainless steel cookware has prompted some change in our approach to many kitchen matters. We’re re-learning how to cook, and we’re mastering a new way to clean.

Don’t wait to wash.

Remember all that scientific stuff I shared about preheating pans to close the pores in the steel? Good, because I’m going to talk about it some more. Steel holds heat (shocking, I know) and that is lucky for us because hot steel is a lot easier to clean than cool steel. By taking the time to scrape the miscellaneous food boogers out of your pans the instant you remove the food, there is no time for the pores to re-open and grab onto those sticky bits and pieces.

Can’t scrape right away? That’s understandable, but don’t give those food particles a chance to get comfortable. Take a second to pour some dish soap and water into your pan so it can soak while you eat. I don’t recommend soaking for more than an hour unless you enjoy those tiny flies that like to play around the sink.

Get an arm workout.

Apparently, stainless steel cookware is dishwasher safe, but we’re always a bit wary of the dishwasher in our rental house. It only gets the job done about two-thirds of the time and we really want to give these pots and pans the type of care that will help them last.

Whether we scrape or soak after the food is prepped, we (usually my husband) scrub after dinner. Start with hot water, dish soap, and a dish rag or sponge. Grasp the pot with one hand and, while it is submerged in sudsy water, rub the pot’s surface with the rag/sponge using a circular motion. Do the whole pan, inside, sides, handle, and bottom. If you do this nightly, those little circles will really have an impact on your bingo wings.

Once your cookware is spic and span, rinse off the suds. I find that cool water works best for rinsing because it tends to calm the soap bubbles, while warm to hot water activates the suds.

Polish your way to shiny pots and some muscle tone.

Did you notice how I didn’t tell you to dry your now-clean pots? That’s because it is time to give them some polish.

In all our web searches about stainless steel cookware it was almost unanimously recommended that we get ourselves some Bar Keepers Friend. One container sets me back $1.99 at the grocery store. So far, our culinary adventures have required us to polish our cookware after every use, but I’ve been led to believe some people only polish a few times a year.

You don’t really have to polish the entire pan; just the spots with areas with stubborn scorch marks or other residue. Here’s how it works. Sprinkle a generous amount of the powder onto one area of the pan. Using the same circular motion as above and a bit of pressure, scrub the offending area. BKF instructs you only to work for 90 seconds before rinsing (this is why you only want to pour it on the area you will be working on). Repeat the sprinkle, polish, rinse cycle until you’ve achieved a shine you can be proud of.

NWA Foodie is a proponent of Bar Keepers Friend. Click image for details.


Two tips:

  1. When I say “generous amount” I mean generous amount.  We found being sparse with the powder translated to more repetitions of the polish cycle and/or spots and scorch marks that lived to see another meal.
  2. You want your dish rag or sponge to make good contact with the surface of the pan. For us, the mesh scrubby sponges just couldn’t get the job done. Let BFK do the scrubbing, you provide the elbow grease. Again, you can do the dishes and tone up your arms. Win-win.

Ready, set, dry!

Line-dryable dishes; oh yes they did. Click image for details.

Really, this shouldn’t take any instruction. Your pans are washed, polished, and rinsed. All that is left is for water to evaporate. My grandmother actually washes all of her dishes by hand then loads them into the dishwasher to dry on the racks. Then she sighs happily about all the modern amenities in homes today. Other people have a drying rack on their counter or, like my mom, spread out a clean towel and artistically arrange the pans that need to air dry.

We, however, have disgustingly hard water. Hard water + air drying = nasty, cloudy spots. I did not polish my pots just to have them develop a case of stainless steel chickenpox. Therefore, we wipe our dishes dry. Before you giggle over the thought of me looking very Betty Draper while drying dishes, I’ll have you know my husband looks very cute standing over the sink sipping a martini and drying pans.

Filed Under: Buy You, For You, Tooling Around Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment
July 13, 2012

tooling around: now, we’re cooking

In my house, one must know how to put out a grease fire. Click image for details.

Last month I claimed “cooking with stainless steel cookware is a little like learning to cook all over again.” When I wrote that, I had no idea how true it really was. Luckily, my daughter is out of town all summer so my husband and I have plenty of time to practice without the added pressure of filling an eight-year-old’s bottomless pit of a stomach.

“Cooking well is about three things: good ingredients, good and proper tools, and love. Cooking is craft. Respect it and celebrate it!”

That’s what Paula Lewis had to say when she chimed in on the “gone to pot” discussion. That woman might need to go into sign making. Sadly, I’m not sure my methods for (re)learning to cook really honor the art.

Cooking is trial and error.

The internet is a wealth of cooking knowledge. You can find articles, videos, and tips on just about every aspect of food preparation. Sure, surfing the web helps, but so far, nothing has beaten old fashioned trial and error.

Preheating

A lot of web articles recommend pre-heating your stainless steel cookware before food ever touches it (examples here and here). My husband, the super-researcher, came across something adequately scientific that explained how heating the cooking surface eliminates any imperfections in the metal, reducing available areas for food to latch onto (stick). I assume he found something like this awesome article by Talley on Houseboat Eats. Also included are a couple of very clear videos.

“As you might imagine, this ideal window of heat has to do with the atoms in the pan moving around and ‘opening and closing the pores’ in the steel. In this sense, the ‘pores’ almost act like tiny teeth that bite into your meat and cause sticking. At the right temperature, the ‘pores’ are static, and your food doesn’t stick.”

Somehow, I came away from this with the idea that I needed to heat my pan on high heat, then reduce the temp and start cooking. NO! Actually, if you want to test the limits of your patience, this might work for you because it takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R for the pan to reach an acceptable (read: non-scorching) cooking temp. We’d had our stainless cookware five weeks before we were able to cook food within five minutes of turning on the stove. The trick, for us, is to heat the pan on medium-low heat (4 out of 10 on our knob) for 60 to 90 seconds. By then, water will usually dance and I can turn the heat down to 2 or 1.

Lubrication

After the heat gets turned down, we get to do a little more waiting. I generally chop stuff for two or three minutes. If you get impatient and start throwing oil into the pan you will be rewarded with smoky, gooey, sticky mess, and a husband that whines about cleaning it up. Actually, my husband never whines. He occasionally throws me a look of disbelief.

In truth, the too-hot oil will smoke almost immediately, giving you time to wipe out the pan before things get too nasty. Butter is far less forgiving, so I recommend you either stick with oil or get yourself a non-stick pan if butter is your go-to lubricant (see LuAnn Poli’s comment on my last post).

Pouring Oil 2. Photo by fdmount. Click image for details.

Cooking Heat

Sometimes it helps to read the instructions. You are all very clever so I’m sure you always read the manual before using a new doodad. I, on the other hand, was too cool for the pamphlet of tips Emeril kindly enclosed with his cookware. The result of being too cool? I made my food too hot. That’s right, we ate blackened meals for about four days. Somehow, I think burning 800 calories in 30 minutes does not mean setting the chicken on fire.

I think day four was when I finally read Emeril’s advice: You’ll have to cook at lower temperatures than you may be accustomed.

Oh. Another place to find such pearls is, you know, THE ENTIRE INTERNET.  Besides the web posts already mentioned, the tip about lower heat is mentioned here and here (and just about everywhere else).

So after I heat the pan on medium-low, then turn it down to low or lower, I cook the food at low, lower, or lowest. Lowest is denoted by the very cryptic “Lo” on the knob for the burner.

It think – think – I am finally getting the hang of it. To date my biggest triumph has been a yummy veggie pot pie with totally not burned onions and fennel.

It looks a little dull, but it smells divine.

Bacon, on the other hand… Someday. In the meantime, I have some Mexican Meatball Soup to make for dinner. While I do that, why don’t you fill up the comments with your own cooking (mis)adventures. Next time we talk we’ll get into the nitty gritty of getting the nitty gritty off your cookware. Feel free to share your tips on that, too.

Bon apetit!

Filed Under: Buy You, For You, Tooling Around Tagged With: , , , , , , 1 Comment
June 29, 2012

tooling around: scoutie girl has gone to pot

My last couple of posts (here and here) have been serious, so today we are stepping away from topics of emotional heft to focus on a group of physical objects with measurable weight. We’re talking heavy duty tools.

My new stainless steel pots!

Not my cookware or my kitchen, but a nice dramatic photo nonetheless. Click image for real details.

Actually, I believe the proper term is “cookware.”

I realize Never a Plain Jane Designs doesn’t have any relation to cooking, but some of your businesses do. And really, aren’t we all sort of in the business of home keeping? I know it sometimes feels like a job to me…

My cooking credentials
I prepare at least five meals a week for my family of three plus whatever school mates my daughter drags home. I didn’t have much of a cooking education growing up because my mom preferred to do it herself. As a result, my last ten years in the kitchen have included some learning, a bit of trial, and a lot of error.

Bacon preparation, for one, has always eluded me. My ability to fill the house with smoke every single Saturday had become something of a family joke.  That is, until Mother’s Day when my husband and daughter tried to make breakfast. Smoke filled the house and it had nothing to do with me. Turns out, our eleven-year-old anodized pans had been in use about four years too many. The bottoms were no longer flat which caused hot spots, and the finish on every pot and pan had long lost its uniformity. My history with food prep has been so sordid, though, we never thought some of my shortcomings might actually be due to my tools.

The Research Began
I have one place and one place only for researching food-related anything: theKitchn. I searched “cookware,” read about five of the posts, and was ready to burn up my credit card on a full set of All-Clad saucepans and skillets. Luckily, my other half is a more cautious and conscientious shopper. He did his search on Google and read reviews from several websites regarding

  • Copper Cookware
  • Stainless Steel Cookware
  • Caring for Cookware
  • Bonded Bottom vs. Tri-ply
  • Buying a Set vs. Buying Piecemeal
  • Brand Name Comparisons

All-Clad made the list of brands to check out. Also, Le Crueset and Calphalon. At this stage we were looking for two things: heft and comfort.

Weight and Hold Tests
Most of our (his) research indicated heavier=better, but we also had to make sure nothing was too heavy for me to handle it easily.  A heavy pot filled with boiling water and food can be quite the work out, especially when my 5’2” self has to heave that sucker up high enough to drain it in the kitchen sink. We also didn’t want anything interfering with my mad pancake-flipping skills.

You can look at pots online all day, but photos don’t tell you what they’ll feel like in your hand. Despite their high price and excellent reputation, the All-Clad cookware had the most uncomfortable handles! The u-shape design meant narrow steel edges were pressed into my hand no matter what grasp I used. One Williams Sonoma manager confessed this was the most common reason cited by customers who passed on All-Clad.

On the other end of the weight and comfort scale is another caution: a pan that is especially light is typically less durable and/or well made. And never, ever opt to buy cookware just because it has the most comfortable handle in the history of pot grips.

Construction
Non-stick, anodized, tri-ply, bonded, cast-iron, steel, aluminum, copper, ACK! What does it all mean! To be honest, you guys, I still have only a faint idea. Here’s what I got:

  • We needed new cookware.
  • Our decrepit cookware was “non-stick.”
  • Copper conducts heat very well, but requires a lot of maintenance.
  • References to “tri-ply with a copper or aluminum core” seemed to be every which way we turned.
  • We could not afford top of the line.

In the end, tri-ply was what we bought so that’s what you get to learn about. Also called three ply, tri-ply cookware has three layers of metal.

Some pots and pans are constructed predominately of stainless steel with a bonded base.  This means a layer of copper or aluminum and a second layer of steel are bonded to the bottom of the pan. If you look at it from the side it sort of resembles the sole of a platform shoe in that the bottom is very thick. The three layers make for even heat distribution and this cookware romanced me with its sexy-looking band of copper. Pans in this style are definitely available in our price range. They are also said to have a long life, but buyers are warned the bond will eventually break down causing the bottom layers to separate.

Other pans are made entirely of an aluminum or copper core sandwiched between two layers of steel. The center metal allows for even heat distribution while the outer layers increase durability and reduce maintenance. It also means the pot handles stay cool during stove top use.

Cut-away of Tri-ply construction. Click image for details.

And the winner was…
…All-Clad!

Sort of. We bought a set of Emerilware Pro-Clad cookware, manufactured by All-Clad, from Bed Bath and Beyond. The price was right, the three ply construction was right, the handles were right, and we had a coupon. Also, this stuff is oven safe up to 550 degrees. Awesome!

The learning curve continues
We’ve had our new set for almost a month and it is a little like learning to cook all over again.

Tell you what, I’ll tell you all about cooking and caring for my new pans next week, if you’ll share your cooking adventures in the comments below. Deal?

Filed Under: Buy You, For You, Tooling Around Tagged With: , , , , , , 4 Comments
August 26, 2011

Collective (P)inspiration

Just in case you failed to catch my drift in those Pinning Down Indie posts, I am addicted to Pinterest.  It is, in fact, my go-to website for sewing inspiration, tutorials, recipes, decor, wedding porn…you name it. And I’m not the only one. People worldwide are collecting their inspirations and storing them here. But why?

I tracked down nd +, one of the pinners featured in the most recent Pinning Down Indie post and bombarded her with questions. Not only did she humor me, a perfect stranger (she drew the line at a DNA sample though), she, too is curious to learn more about why people pin.

Tell me about yourself.

My real name is Nateene. It is actually just an Anglicization of my Chinese name, which sounds similar. And speaking of cross-cultural bridges, I too am a Texan! I was born and raised in Ft. Worth, but spent A LOT of time in Hong Kong as a child. As of now, though, I live in Chicago. I have a degree in Art History and work in the Chi-town art world.

Let me just interject here to point out the coolness of meeting a fellow Texan who frequents Hong Kong and lives in Chicago while I myself am living in Tampa!

Are you a maker?

I, sadly, am not the maker I once was, but I do continue to dabble. If I have the time to create, it’s usually spent taking photographs (I actually began my college career as a photography student!) or in the kitchen. I have recently taken an interest in the GIF making process and its thoroughly digital artyness.

Do you pin with a plan or purpose?

As to how I pin: It’s a little bit of everything. The fashion board is a mixture of consumer lust and personal wardrobe inspiration, while the DIY board is more of an ‘eventually I will make time for these projects and until then I don’t want to forget about them!’ However, the food board is put into use A LOT.

I have made or been inspired by so many of the recipes that I have found on Pinterest. So many.

(I just made the watermelon feta quinoa salad a couple of days ago for a BBQ and it was delicious!)

Clicking the photo will take you to the blog containing the salad recipe

How do you choose the boards you follow?

I’m always much more interested (not surprisingly) in the boards that contain things that don’t really fit the mold for what pops up in the main feed.

I would much rather look at and explore a board with freshly pinned material than one stuffed with items that have been repinned again and again. Yay for pinning out of the box!

Is there a particular Pinner you  just know will have stuff you want to repin?

Two of my favorite pinners have to be n&n and artnau. Between the two of them I always have something new to look at.

Artificial left arm, pinned by n&n

Do you follow any photographers or “chefs”?

Unfortunately, I’m not actually sure if I follow many photographers or chefs! I do really like photographer Lou Mora, though.

Who inspires you and why?  This can be someone on Pinterest, an artist whose works you pin or seek out in real life, an author, your favorite neighborhood kid…whoever!

There are so many sources of inspiration to choose from! Pretty much all things vintage draw me in. But I love strong, mouthy women regardless of era. Extra bonus points for a sense of humor. I find my friends incredibly inspiring. My friends have such diverse areas of interest and expertise that I’m never bored or without a place to turn should I have a question (or five.) Everybody from NASA scientists to independent jewelry designers.

This week I stumbled upon a new artist that I hadn’t heard of before: Ignacio Torres, another Texan! His STELLAR series is really, really cool. I hadn’t considered working with GIFs before, but I am now!

I see the pin boards as online collections. Do you collect anything in real life?

The only things I actually collect (not necessarily in a curatorial way) are cameras. About 70% of my little collection was born out of necessity when I was still a photography student and the rest, well, are slightly less essential, but no less loved!

Disclaimer: Not Nateene' actual collection. But you can click on the image to see it and her other camera-related pins.

If you could find out more about any of the pinners you follow, which one would you choose?

I guess I’m most curious to know more about Mariah Kunkel. I love her blog Quite Continental!

- – -

It was amazing to “meet” Nateene and find out so much about a fellow pinner.  If you aren’t on Pinterest you are totally passing up a chance to push yourself out of your comfort zone and are missing out on all sorts of serendipitous coolness! I urge you to go collect art from museums too far for you to visit and some art that you would never call art at all, check out the pinners who love Danish furniture, and scroll through bizarre medical findings from the 18th century.  There are a million ways to be inspired by these amazing collections. And while you’re at it, why don’t you pin something of your own into the collective inspiration?

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