This weekend 9 of us were up at Bogus Basin, staying in the Pioneer Condos for two nights. My friend got an awesome Groupon, which made the entire trip about $35 per person. It is nice you can cram 9 people into this place because that really makes the stay cheap. Normally it would be about $500 for two nights, so even without a Groupon, the price is still right when you have 9 people in one condo.
You can drive almost right up to the condos and can look out the window and see a chair lift about thirty feet from the porch. We had a fireplace and plenty of wood available to use. There were two hot tubs and a sauna (for the entire complex), plus free washers and dryers. We had two showers and two toilets, two bunk beds, a table that turned into a (very comfortable) Queen bed, a normal Queen bed, and a pull-out couch (very uncomfortable). We also brought an inflatable mattress.
In addition to plenty of beds, the condo also came stocked with dishes, pots, pans, cooking utensils, and a few key kitchen items like coffee, sugar, olive oil, salt and pepper. There was a fridge, kettle, microwave and oven. We also had two TVs and a DVD player, which didn't get any use.
Here are some pictures from the condo. I highly recommend staying there sometime! We were in 202A.
Today I tried to make Beet Foam. Why? I don't really know. I guess because I have an abundance of Soy Lethicin, which seems to be mainly useful for making foams. Hopefully I have more success with my future foaming experiments, but today's didn't work.
I don't even want to go into much detail because I have no idea what I did wrong - it was a pretty simple recipe. Maybe I will figure out the err of my ways as I try new foams. I blended 1 can of beets into a puree, added one packet of Soy Lethicin, and then used my immersion blender. You are then supposed to get glorious amounts of foam. I got nuthin'.
However, there was a happy discovery. Cut bread into fourths and top with blue cheese crumbles. Place in a 225* oven and let set for about five minutes until bread is dried out a bit and crunchy. Remove from the oven (blue cheese doesn't really melt, so don't wait for it to melt. It won't). Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and devour.
SO YUMMY. Beats the way I normally eat blue cheese- out of the container. Now I am nervous because I have an entire loaf of bread calling my name. It will take a lot of willpower to limit myself to a few slices a day.
Speaking of willpower, I also have my favorite tomatoes cooking in the oven which I can hardly keep myself from eating as they cook. Slice roma tomatoes in half, so you have two ovals (I think that is lengthwise). Use as many as you want - I love these so much I do about 10 at a time. Toss with olive oil and your favorite spices. I use salt, cumin, and some red chili flakes to make them spicy. Lay on a cookie sheet and bake at 225* for SIX HOURS. These get better over time. Start with as many as you can handle, because I always end up eating about half as they cook. Right now they have been in the oven 3 hours and I have already eaten three tomatoes. However, at 22 calories a tomato, these are an amazing snack.
Well I am falling desperately behind as I was out of town last weekend, and things will only get worse because I am going out of town next weekend as well.
Tonight I made Honey Sheets - a spin off of the super easy Balsamic Sheets I made a few weekends ago.
1) Boil 1/3 cup water, 1/2 cup honey, and one packet Agar Agar. Note that 1/2 cup honey is actually quite a lot. Make sure you have enough honey in stock! Also, I had a bit of trouble getting my honey to set, so make sure to bring to a boil and try holding it there for a minute or so.
2) Pour the mixture into a large casserole dish. Place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. I tried not cooling this and letting it sit on the counter. Don't do that. You need the chill of a fridge. Note that mine wasn't solidifying very well so I let it sit in the fridge longer. This fixed the problem.
3) When solid, cut into whatever shapes you want. I cut it into a square similiar to how you can purchase American processed cheese.
4) Place on a fresh, juicy, white bread sandwich. If you are going to make a peanut butter and honey sandwich, go all out. Don't use grain bread, wheat bread, low-carb bread, etc. Use the stuff that reminds you of Wonderbread! Wonderfully doughy and like what you would normally avoid.
Put a layer of creamy peanut butter, layered on your honey sheet, and cover with the other slice of bread. DELICIOUS and the best part is the honey doesn't drip everywhere. This is a sandwich you can actually eat in the car on the way to work or eat at your desk and not make a mess.
Awesome.
I totally messed this one up because I couldn't find my syringe anywhere!! That is something you don't hear yourself say very often.
However, this is really easy and I think I could have pulled it off no problem if I had my syringe.
Here is how you make it:
1) Boil 3/4 cup water and one packet Agar Agar.
2) When at a boil, add 85 grams dark chocolate (about 9 standard size squares of chocolate), and one tablespoon of alcohol of your choice. I used creme de cocoa. Kahlua, Tia Maria, or Raspberry liquer would all be good choices.
3) Stir until melted together. My chocolate melted quickly - be careful it doesn't burn.
4) Pour into a tall glass. Using your syringe, suck up the mixture and push into the tubes (you might even be able to try pushing it into a straw if you don't have tubes). Put in an ice bath for 3 minutes, then push out using syringe. Voila! Chocolate spaghetti.
I got to the "pour into a tall glass" step and realized I have NO idea where I put my syringe. Instead, I covered a personal sized angel food cake with the chocolate. This solified into a nice layer, then I added whipped cream and strawberries, plus some decorative splashes of chocolate. Absolutely delicious but nowhere near as cool as it could have looked.
This is a really cool, easy recipe that I could imagine would come in handy at plenty of parties - Bloody Marys served INSIDE of celery sticks!
1) Boil 6 ounces (3/4 cup) of bloody mary mix per one packet Agar Agar. This was enough for about 5 celery sticks, but I didn't reserve the liquid I spilled. If I had, I probably would have been able to make about 7 celery sticks.
Note that I didn't want to go to the liquor store, so I just used 3/4 cup tomato juice, 1/2 teaspoon celery salt, 1 teaspoon Worchestire, and some tabasco. If you make the vodka version, I would replace 1/4 cup of tomato juice with vodka.
2) Pour the Bloody Mary mixture into the celery sticks - yes, it is that easy. Make sure you transfer the mixture out of a pan and into some sort of cup with a spout to make it easier to pour. The only difficult part is depending on the shape of the celery, some of it might spill out. If you have this problem and are a perfectionist, I would recommend filling them as much as you can, letting them solidify, then slicing off the ends that are not filled completely.
Also, I placed my celery in a casserole dish and then poured. I spilled plenty of liquid - if you siphon this off and reserve it, you could easily fill more celery (or don't spill as much). However, reserve the liquid quickly - this stuff solidies fast.
Set the mixture aside to cool and harden. This only took about 10 minutes - WAY FASTER than making jello shots!
For Valentine's Day, I decided a delicious dessert would be appropriate. I was also really tired, so I wanted something easy to make. These could not be easier. They aren't weird or that interesting, but they are totally yummy.
1) Blend together 1 cup blueberries, 1 cup water, and sweetener (I used 2 tablespoons sugar). I used frozen blueberries - this would work with fresh as well.
2) Add 1 packet Agar Agar and bring to a boil.
3) Pour into your serving dishes and freeze for two hours (mine were fine after 1.5 hours). *Note - take them OUT of the freezer, even if you are not serving yet, after 2 hours. Put them in the fridge to store.
4) Top with whipped cream and more blueberries and dig in!
Mine made three dessert sized portions.
*This is basically a way to make healthier jello where you control what goes in it. I would imagine this technique should work for most fruits - 1 cup water, 1 cup fruit, sweetener, and a packet of Agar Agar. It has a texture similiar to jello, but a bit thicker.
Another easy recipe so I can get back on track!
This principle should work for turning basically any liquid into a gel sphere. To be clear, the gellification recipes (with Agar Agar) turn things into a solid, jello like substance. The spherification recipes (with sodium alginate/calcium lactate) turn things in a sphere with a liquid middle. Spherification recipes can have really cool results, but are harder to pull off and the spheres are usually larger.
Below is a gellification recipe.
To make balsamic pearls:
1) Fill a tall glass with olive oil and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2) When the oil is about five minutes from being done, boil 2/3 cup balsamic vinegar with one packat Agar Agar.
3) Using a dropper, drop the balsamic mixture into the cold olive oil.
4) When all the vinegar is dropped in, use a slotted spoon to transfer the spheres to a bowl of cold water and rinse.
Some notes:
*I placed cheesecloth over a bowl and poured my leftover olive oil into this to filter out any leftover pearls. Then I reserved the olive oil - this would have been a big waste to throw away that much. I then used a filter to get the olive oil back into a bottle.
*I also used a cheesecloth to rinse my pearls. After the first bath, I poured the bath over the cheesecloth and filtered out the pearls. Then I put them in another bath and repeated this process once more.
I am going to eat these in a tomato/mozzerella/basil salad. Delicious!
I wanted to make something simple in Moscow this weekend, so I made balsamic sheets. I didn't take any pictures, but it was one of the easiest ones yet.
1) Boil 2/3 cup of balsamic vinegar with one package Agar Agar.
2) Pour into a large casserole dish. Tilt dish around so entire dish is covered in a fine layer.
3) Put into fridge for 15 minutes.
Done! Then, just cut out the shapes you want. This forms sheets that look kind of like the consistency of a fruit roll up or jello. I cut mine into rectangles and it cut very well and also maintained it's shape. I used mine on a sandwich like you would use a slice of processed chese. I also think it would be great sandwiched between two pieces of mozzerella, or a tomato/mozzerella stack.
Keeping this one short and sweet - Also, I am going to Moscow this weekend, so may not post again until Monday.
How to make Arugula Spaghetti:
1) Blend together 2 cups arugular and 3/4 cup water into a smooth paste.
2) Bring to a boil with one packet of Agar Agar
3) Using a syringe, suck up the arugula mixture.
4) Push it into long tubes (see picture). A straw might work, but it might spill out the ends. The tubes came in my kit.
5) Put in ice water for at least 4 minutes.
6) Use the syringe full of air to push out the noodles.
These look really cool, but arugula in noodle form is kinda gross and weird. I think the method would work for anything though. These noodles are really fragile - if I try to pick them up they break. I want to try this again but with something delicious, like fruit juice.
I was ten kinds of tired tonight so I went with something fairly easy - raspberry ravioles. These are actually really lame. They turn out like little circles of raspberries. Surprise! Raspberries are already circular! Haha. Really though, the value added is you get spheres of liquid, so that part is cool. I still haven't gotten the hang of making good large liquid spheres, so these just weren't very impressive.
Here are the quick instructions. I want to go to bed.
1) Make alginate bath with 2 cups water and 1 package Sodium Alginate. Put in fridge 15 minutes.
2) In th blender, mix 1 and 2/3 cup raspberries with one tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon calcium lactate.
3) When the alginate bath is ready, scoop the raspberry mixture into the alginate bath. If you aren't good at making spheres, use a smaller size to have a better chance of them working. Let sit at least 3 minutes, then rinse in a water bath.
4) Assemble and eat!
I ate mine with vanilla yogurt, chocolate chips, and cinnamon. That combo was amazing, but as you can see, some of my spheres broke.
Today's creation is a funny one to make - a mango yogurt display that looks just like an egg! I had a few issues making the "yolk" but overall, this one is pretty easy.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup vanilla yogurt
2 mangos
2 tablespoons sugar
1 packet Agar Agar
1/2 teaspoon Calcium Lactate
1 packet Sodium Alginate
Immersion blender
Step 1: Make the alginate bath
As usual, mix 2 cups water and 1 packet alginate with your immersion blender, then place in the fridge at least fifteen minutes.
Step 2: Prepare the "egg white"
Heat 1/2 cup milk with one packet of Agar Agar and bring to a boil. I burned my milk, which didn't ruin anything, but did give it a slight toasted flavor. The milk never came to a very strong boil - I think you can consider it boiling when it has a thin layer of bubbles.
Step 3: Pour the whites
Immediately mix the milk into 2/3 cup of vanilla yogurt. Stir thoroughly and then pour a thin circular layer onto a plate. Wait five or ten seconds, then pour a slightly smaller circular layer over the original circle.
*Do not wait too long to do this! I was messing around taking pictures and my yogurt mixture got significantly thicker in the minute or so between adding the milk and pouring. You want to pour it out asap for a smooth looking white.
Then put the plate in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Step 4: Prepare the "yolk"
Dice up mangos - you need 1 and a quater cups of mango puree. This ended up being about a mango and a half. I pureed my mangos in my magic bullet, then measured the puree, then put the appropriate amount back in the blender. Then, add 2 tablespoons sugar and a half teaspoon calcium lactate. I would fudge and add a bit extra calcium lactate - my yolks weren't as solid as I would have preferred.
Step 5: Make the yolks
Using a tablespoon, drop the mango mixture into the alginate bath. Let sit at least 3 minutes (I would try 5) and stir occasionally. Then, pick up the yolks using the tablespoon (mine kept breaking with the slotted spoon) and transfer to a rinsing bath of water.
Take your plate out of the fridge and plate the yolks on top of the yogurt whites. The whites have a texture that feels almost exactly like a real egg white and the yolks look just like real egg yolks. I had a tiny bit of trouble getting my yolks to hold their shape when out of the water, but I think a bit of extra calcium lactate and some extra time in the bath would remedy that.
Voila - looks just like an egg! I have no idea what you would do with something like this, but it is kind of funny :)
For Day 6, I made Mint Caviar. This stuff looks REALLY REALLY COOL. However, I want to warn you that it is surprisingly not very flavorful. It doesn't taste bad, but I used creme de menthe and it really didn't taste minty at all. If you make caviar of any kind, I would make it with the intention of a cool garnishment, but don't expect it to impart much flavor.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup creme de menthe (or whatever liquid you want to use)
2 packets Sodium Alginate
1 packet Calcium Lactate
Dropper
Cheesecloth/mesh strainer
Step 1: Make Alginate Syrup
Add 2 packets of Sodium Alginate to 1 and 1/4 cups of warm water. Mix using an immersion blender, then pour into a saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil, let boil about 1 minute, then remove from heat and let cool for ten minutes.
*Note, to clean my immersion blender (the alginate solution gets really sticky) I soak it in warm water and soap and change the water two or three times.
Step 2: Make Mint Syrup
Mix together 1/3 cup alginate syrup and 1/3 cup creme de menthe. You will have leftover syrup - feel free to mix with other liquids (I think alcohol would be the safest bet) in a 1 to 1 ratio. However, I got REALLY sick of dropping in the small little balls, so keep that in mind. It takes forever.
Step 3: Make Calcium bath
Add one packet Calcium Lactate to 4 cups lukewarm water. Mix thoroughly.
Step 4: Dropper!
Fill up a dropper with the mint mixture and dropper into the calcium bath. This takes a VERY long time! However, keep dropping them in until you have the amount of caviar that you want. Stir periodically or the caviar will get a weird little tail.
Step 5: Strain
I used a cheesecloth to separate the caviar from the water and this worked well. It you have a mesh strainer, this would also work. The holes in a slotted spoon were too large, so this would not work. *Note I used to think cheesecloth was intimidating - it sounds so fancy! Buy it. It costs like $2 and it is totally worth it.
Step 6: Enjoy your awesome looking creation! I ate mine over chocolate ice cream. These would look cool over basically anything, and I also think they would look great in cocktails (mint in a mojito would be fantastic).
You can pick these up and roll them between your fingers. They are very sturdy little balls (they feel like small salmon eggs you use for fishing).
Well Day Five was a pretty big failure when it comes to Thing A Day. I really wanted to post something, but I woke up and went to a friend's house to help prepare food for the Super Bowl. She made queso dip, lil weenies, and football brownies. I made a mexican chicken pizza and an Italian sausage pizza. Everything was delicious and turned out great!
The Super Bowl was okay - I didn't drink and I don't find football very interesting, not to mention the commercials weren't all that great. I did manage to fall asleep during the last quarter, so it is good to know it isn't just the alcohol that makes me sleepy during football :)
I rode to the party with my friends, so I didn't get home until 10:30, which gave me no time for Thing A Day. Today, to make up for it, I made two things.
Day Five's designated recipe was for Lychee Cubes.
These did NOT turn out, but I think the basic theory would work for liquid spheres with something solid in the middle. I will explain how I made them, because I really think there were just a few simple errors and these would be pretty easy to fix.
Ingredients:
One can Lychees (or any fruit packed in syrup)
One packet Sodium Alginate
1/2 teaspoon Calcium Lactate
Utensils:
Immersion blender
silicon baking tray (preferrably small circular holes!)
Instructions:
Step 1: Make the alginate bath
This is your standard alginate bath - 2 cups water and 1 packet Sodium Alginate. Mix with an immersion blender and place in fridge for (at least) fifteen minutes. Note as you read the recipe farther, I would recommend freezing the other portion overnight. Therefore, you can probably make this bath the next day.
Step 2: Prepare Lychee syrup
Add half teaspoon Calcium Lactate to 1/2 cup canned Lychee syrup. Mix thoroughly - I had a tough time getting it mixed completely. Keep stirring until it is!
Step 3: Cut Lychees
Cut the solid pieces of lychee into small bits
Step 4: Pour into silicon tray
Pour the prepared Lychee syrup into the silicon tray. I could not find a circular tray anywhere, and I think this would work way better with a circular tray, rather than large squares. Do not fill the tray completely or it will spill everywhere.
Add the solid bits of lychee evenly into each spot.
Then, place on a baking tray (the silicon tray will bend if you don't) and freeze.
I did NOT let mine freeze long enough. Ideally, freeze them overnight.
Step 5: Alginate bath
Pop out the lychee squares and let soak in the alginate bath for 3 minutes, then put in a rinsing bath (water).
My problem here was I put too many cubes into one bath, and they all stuck together and made a big mess. Use a big bowl and make sure the cubes are not touching.
I think this has the potential to be really cool - essentially you can make spheres/cubes that are liquid with something solid in the middle. That would look really awesome. With a few tweaks (freeze completely and don't let them touch in the bath) I think it would be pretty easy. When I did it, they all stuck together and turned into a big gross blob!
Day 4's inspiration came from an overwhelming amount of oranges and a love of goat cheese. I was looking for recipes that called for oranges because I have a ton of them - a couple days after buying a massive bag of orange's from Costco, I also got a shipment of 12 oranges from my Aunt in Florida. Love having so many oranges, but I have to get creative.
I found a recipe for "Orange, Roasted Beet, and Arugula Salad" in my cookbook, Fresh Flavor Fast from Martha Stewart (thanks Mom!).
As a side note, this cookbook is rated 4.5 stars on Amazon and I absolutely love it. It has really simple ingredients that make really delicious, impressive food.
Goat Cheese Globes
Ingredients
1.7 oz of goat cheese (I used garlic and herb)
1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon milk
1 packet (20g) Sodium Alginate
1/2 teaspoon Calcium Lactate
Special Utensils
Slotted spoon
Immersion blender
Step 1: Make Alginate Bath
Add one packet (20g) of Sodium Alginate to 2 cups of cool water. Mix with your immersion blender (or put into a standard blender) and let sit in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Step 2: Prepare Goat Cheese
Add 50g of goat cheese to a bowl. I used a converter and this is 1.7 ounces. The standard goat cheese log is 4 oz, so I tried to use about a little less than half of the log. Then, add 1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon of milk. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of Calcium Lactate over the milk/goat cheese, and stir together thoroughly.
*Note that my globes were not runny at all. I had to use my finger to push the mixture out of the teaspoon. This made the effect much less impressive because they were more blobs than dollops. Without a bit of fluidity, they didn't take on a very cool shape. I am not sure how to remedy this - maybe more milk and more calcium lactate?
Step 3: Make the Globes
Using a half teaspoon, scoop up the goat cheese mixture and drop by the spoonful into the alginate solution. Note that I thought a half teaspoon ended up being fairly large. If I made these again, I would use a quarter teaspoon. Let sit for three minutes, then give the globes a rinsing bath in a bowl full of cool water.
Goat cheese globes were far from the coolest thing to make. These were really easy, but just not very impressive. Goat cheese can already form crumbles on their own, and without any sort of fancy shape, I could have had a similiar result by just slicing the cheese. I did like have more of a fluid cheese on my salad though.
Orange, Beet and Arugula Salad- serves four as a starter salad
Ingredients:
Salad
1 large beet - I got canned shoestring beets to make it much easier
2 oranges
2 bunches arugula
Goat cheese - or make goat cheese globes, above (I used almost half of a standard 4 oz goat cheese log). Choose your favorite flavor
Cauliflower - optional
Dressing
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablesppon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
Juice from the oranges
Step 1: Prepare the beet
If you don't want to use canned beets, you need to cook your beet. To do so, preheat the oven to 450*F. Wrap the beet tightly in aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet. Cook until tender when pierced with a knife (about 45-50 minutes). When cool enough to handle, peel (rub off the skin with a paper towel so your hands don't stain) and cut into wedges. That seemed like a lot of work for just one beet, which is why I choose to use canned beets. They come presliced, so you just open the can and you are good to go.
Step 2: Prepare oranges
Over a bowl, cut the ends off both the oranges. Then cut in half again (see picture). After that, peel and wedge the oranges. Squeze the juice out of the ends of the orange that you cut off. You are trying to salvage some orange juice for the dressing.
Step 3: Make the dressing
Mix together oil, vinegar, mustard, and orange juice. Add salt and pepper to taste, then whisk to combine (I just put mine in a little container and shake). If you do not have enough orange juice, just squeeze the juice out of a few of your orange wedges.
Step 4: Assemble Salad
Toss arugula with dressing from Step 3. Divide among four plates (or two if this is a dinner salad), top with beets, oranges, and goat cheese globes, plus cauliflower if using.
For Day Three of Thing A Day, I decided to continue on the road of spherification and attempt to make Yogurt Spheres. YOGURT SPHERES WERE A RAGING SUCCESS! Seriously, these should be marked #1 on the beginners scale, and they are a total bang for your buck. Cheap ingredients, very simple to make, and really cool looking.
Grocery Store Ingredients:
2/3 cup of your favorite flavor of yogurt
If serving in a fruit salad, then you also need a variety of your favorite fruits
Additives:
1 packet Sodium Alginate (20g)
1/2 teaspoon Calcium Lactate
Special utensils:
Immersion blender/normal blender probably works
Slotted spoon
Step 1: Make your Alginate bath
You may be getting used to this now, as an Alginate bath is the basic step for any spherification recipe. Add 1 packet (20g) of Sodium Alginate to two cups of water and mix with your immersion blender. Then, place in the fridge for fifteen minutes.
Step 2: Prepare your yogurt
Add 1/2 teaspoon Calcium Lactate to 2/3 cup of yogurt. I was heavy handed with the calcium lactate, as I think this may have been my issue yesterday. I also made sure to mix very thoroughly - if the additive is not mixed in properly, then it will not work well.
Step 3: Make your spheres
Now that things were working properly, making the spheres was a cinch. I seriously had *none* of the problems that I had last time. When placed in the alginate bath, the yogurt stayed put. It didn't matter if it had been in the bath 10 seconds or 3 minutes. As soon as it was dropped into the bath, it was like the yogurt immediately had a coating around it and it wasn't leaking out everywhere like the custard did.
Using a teaspoon, drop balls of yogurt into the alginate bath. Because of the"shell" around the yogurt, I didn't have to worry about dropping them near each other and them sticking together. Once they had a few seconds to set, they didn't attach to their neighboring spheres.
The only thing to be careful about is as you drop them in. If you are a messy dropper or drop too slowly, two or more balls could form and stick together.
Let the spheres sit in the bath for 3 minutes, then transfer to a bowl of water. Rinse (swirl the spoon around) and remove from the water. I did this in batches and probably had to clear out my alginate bath about 5 times to add more spheres in.
DONE!
So, so, so easy!
I am not sure about storage, but I think these will be able to be stored in a normal tupperware container. I will let you know if I run into any problems, but here is the finished product.
They are so awesome. You can pick each one up, roll it around, drop it into the water, and it won't even break. One thing to be careful of is getting them out of this container though. I had to squeeze a bit and a few broke, so I would use a spoon to get them out of the container they reside in.
Here is how I ate my spheres, atop a delicious fruit salad.
Another thing to note is the texture of these takes a bit of getting used to, if you are expecting to just pop them in your mouth. They taste fine, but there is a definite alginate coating that forms a shell around them. If you eat them in something like a fruit salad, granola, etc. they taste great and the shell isn't even noticeable. Just wanted to provide some forewarning that it might take getting used to if you wanted to serve this solo.
