Kitchen Notes: Strawberry Season

Depending on where you are, or how your grocery stores source their not-local produce, strawberry season can start as early as December (as was the case when I last visited southern California) where advances in agriculture methods have yielded seasonal crops in shorter grow cycles with larger production. I'm not sure when harvesting season is in southwest Washington/Portland since farms as far out as Yakima valley (east of the Cascade mountains) show up in the Portland metro area farmers markets. This year, warmer and drier weather started in March. Off-season prices range from $2/lb to $5/lb for commercially grown strawberries, up to $6/lb for local or organic strawberries. 

Is this a lot of money? It depends on what you're going to do with them: eating, paired with wine or desserts, making preserves, etc. Gone are the days when strawberries could be found at the grocery store for $0.99/lb. And, both farms and grocery stores don't really fall into any standard of weights and measures when it comes to selling to consumers. Some do it by visual cues, selling by the pint (visual volume not by weight) and others sell by the weight. Personally, I'd rather buy my produce by the pound than its visual volume (as is the case with rhubarb stalks, where you have to estimate how much usable rhubarb you'll have after trimming the ends of the stalks).

Last weekend at my local farmers market, I picked up a "half flat" (visual volume) of fresh strawberries which were smaller than what you'd find at a grocery store, but looked really red (an indication of ripeness and sweetness). Of the three or four booths that were selling strawberries in "half flat", I went with the cheapest booth at $10/half flat. When I got home and weighed what I bought, it came out to be 2 lbs 12 oz or roughly $3.63/lb.

Fresh rhubarb stalks at the farmers market also has a wide range of pricing, typically $2.50 to $4.00 per pound. The stalks are redder, thicker and healthier than what can be found at the local produce market. But, is it really worth double the price?

Kitchen Notes: Green Tea & C Electrolyte Drink

This is certainly a cheaper option to Gatorade or coconut water and is a good mix of sea salt, sugar, and potassium. There are many ways to feel thirsty and not have water quench it. For today's recipe write-up, I will assume that this vampiric thirst is due to the dry 90+ degrees (Fahrenheit) weather in the Pacific Northwest; also I just ate a heavy protein-dense sandwich for lunch.

Onto the recipe...

In a 1-quart mason jar add the following:

1 packet of Emergen-C (any flavor) or Trader Joe's Effervescent Orange
8 oz filtered water

Swish the liquid around in the jar until the powder dissolves, then add:

8 oz fruit juice (something high in potassium, like Trader Joe's Cherry Cider or Blueberry Juice)

The type of fruit juice used offers different ratios of vitamins and trace minerals.

Brew 8 oz green tea (from leaves or a tea bag), remove tea bag and dilute with another 8 oz of filtered water. Or brew 16 oz of green tea and add that to the jar.

Add 1/4 tsp sea salt -- the type of salt does matter for its trace minerals. Himalayan sea salt will have a higher concentration of trace minerals as will Hawaiian Black Salt; but don't go breaking the bank on this ingredient. Most salt labelled as "sea salt" will work. 

If you are concerned about the lack of iodine in sea salt, you could add food items such as fish, dairy, eggs and seaweed to your diet.

In total, you should have 32 oz of water consisting of:
1 c fruit juice
1 c green tea
2 c filtered water
1/4 tsp sea salt

According to MyFitnessPal, each 8 oz serving contains:

36 calories
sodium 128.8 mg
potassium 117.5 mg
magnesium 15 mg
Vitamin C 416.8 mg

Enjoy and stay hydrated!

Read more?
Magnesium-rich foods [PDF]
WebMD: Minerals by Function and Source

Kitchen Notes: Cornish Game Hens

I can't believe the price of a game hen these days. Today's price is what whole 4-5 lb chickens costed at the supermarket several years ago. When they were on sale, you used to be able to buy them for 2 for $5. Now each is nearly $5.

Cornish Game Hens also called rock hens, Cornish hens, or poussin, aren't full sized chickens. Despite the name, it's not a game animal (not hunted) and the bird is a hybrid, and commercially bred as food. Also, while hens typically refer to female chickens, a Cornish hen can be male or female. The USDA describes these birds as an immature chicken less than five weeks of age and less than two pounds. These are usually 22 oz at the grocery store and are always in the freezer section. 

I found them randomly at my local Costco, also in the freezer section. Buying at bulk retail would drive the cost down to $3/hen, but who has room in their own freezer for six birds?

It's been a while since I last roasted one.

Read more?
Modern Farmer - The Cornish Game Hen is a Liar

Kitchen Notes: Matcha Swiss Roll

This was my second time making a dessert in the "Swiss Roll" style; meaning it's a soft, sponge-like bread with a sweet cream-based filling. The pumpkin roll with candied ginger came out pretty good and well-liked by TDay2015 eaters.

There were several things that went terribly wrong but I didn't scrap the recipe and start over:

• The sponge batter came out extremely dense; thick like a gorilla glue heavy; it also didn't cook all the way through in the oven and perhaps I didn't spread it out thick enough on the baking sheet because...
• Before folding in the egg whites, the sponge batter wasn't liquid at all.
• When it came to the rolling the sponge up to cool down in a linen kitchen towel, it stuck to the towel - ugh. In fact, when I tried to unroll the sponge to put in the filling... the sponge broke in several pieces because it was sticking to the towel.
• And, not wanting to cut my losses, I produced an extremely unappetizing but edible dessert
• Definitely a #failed #kitchenexperiment

I subbed two ingredients: almond milk for regular cow's whole milk; and 3/4 c AP flour plus 1 tbsp cornstarch sifted together for cake flour.

Ginger Beer: an alcoholic batch

It would appear that I have made my first alcoholic batch of ginger beer, which when fermented correctly yields a carbonated soft drink. I was experimenting with ratios and added more of everything except the yeast (just a teaspoon). Effects-wise, I'd say that I might have reached between 4-5% alcohol and that was only after drinking 8 oz of it.

I'm still unsure of how to properly use a hydrometer; as I don't have enough liquid to test for the size of the hydrometer that I have, nor do I have a container with enough slender volume that I can measure the beer in.

Here are the tested ratios:

1/2 c grated ginger (vs 1/4 c)
1.25 c organic granulated sugar (vs 1 cup)
10 c water (vs 9 cups)

As for the fermenting time: 3.5 days instead of 2
Avg room temp for the ferment was 55-60 F

This batch yielded 2 liters plus 1 pint.

After thoughts:

Too much raw ginger flavor. It was potent and felt like a kick to the head.

The extra sugar did nothing to make the beer sweeter before decanting into flip-top bottles, in fact, the yeast ate it all.

Also, the Active Dry Yeast was very fresh (yes, that's bread yeast).

Kitchen Notes: Measuring Flour

All this time I've been using the scoop+level method for measuring flour, meaning getting a cup of flour at a time from the container of flour then leveling it off with a straight edge. The alternate way, as suggested by most baking sites is to spoon the flour into the measuring cup and then level it off. And, if you are a master baker like Martha Stewart, you can just eyeball it with the scoop and shake method (no leveling off). Food Network suggests to scoop then level off dry ingredients. Local IoT app maker, Perfect Company, combines a digital scale with Bluetooth technology that walks users through guided measuring and baking steps. The rationale against the scoop+level method is that the flour gets compacted. Is an extra 20 g of flour that big of a deal?

Visually it all looks the same. Though, when weighed, it's not all the same. Today's measurements with a digital kitchen scale (100% humidity outside):

1 cup of all-purpose flour =

Sample		Scoop+Level		Spoon+Level
1		153 g		139 g
2		149 g		129 g
3		156 g		136 g

I have noticed over the years that when making cookies, I often have a lot more flour leftover in the mixing bowl; though this was more prevalent in southern California where the air is dry nearly year-round.

But, when looking at online recipes by others, the dry ingredient units vary--even from the same author.

AB		measure		suspected
sugar cookies		3 cups AP flour		volume
oatmeal cookies		16 oz old fashioned rolled oats		weight
lentil cookies		9.5 oz whole wheat pastry flour (about 2 c flour)		weight
vanilla wafers		7 oz AP flour		weight

Kitchen Notes: Crispy Pork Belly

I had visual aspirations for this food experiment. I thought it would resemble the real thing. But sadly, it seems that how my oven performed versus what it looks like from a restaurant are radically different in taste, texture, and overall appearance. I think the start of the #fail began when I picked up a random portion of pork belly from Fubonn. There was a lot of fat on the cut I got and it should have had more meat. Aside from the very top layer of the pork belly, the skin, the other two layers should be relatively equal in distribution: fat and meat. Just a thought, really. My pork belly had twice as much fat as meat. Also, I don't believe that 465 degrees F is the right temperature for the second baking phase.

What pork belly looks like after the second roasting;
the skin is really, really hard

This recipe process did not work for me: http://kirbiecravings.com/2014/08/crispy-golden-pork-belly.html

It could also be that I had the pork belly in the freezer for several months instead of using fresh pork belly. The fat content of each slice is too much for me. Ugh. #fail

Kitchen Notes: Kimchi Pairings

After failing to properly can a batch of kimchi, I have four pint jars of it in my refrigerator. The fifth jar that I took into work seems as unpopular as the fresh longan and fresh litchis that I also brought into work. The kimchi wasn't done fermenting (only a week + 2 days had transpired) and ended up getting cooked a little while canning, plus a lot of its liquid leaked out so I'm not sure how much "life" the jars have in the fridge since then.

Here is the scale. The higher it is on the scale, the more likely it is to be served to others. I'll put comparative recipes in the scale for taste context. As a bachelorette, I'll eat most things that rank at or above a 7. Some of these I've done, some suggestions are imaginary. The kimchi and clam chowder was not imaginary but I think it might taste okay with the Boston version instead.

10 (best, is that even possible?)

9.9 - (my Dad's roast duck recipe)

8 - kimchi and pork stew (Korean jigae)

7.5 - baked chicken parts with kimchi

7.2 - kimchi and beef/pork/shrimp/vegetable pho broth

7.1 - kimchi with ramen noodles

7.0 - homemade kimchi straight from the jar

3 - kimchi and New England Clam Chowder

2 - kimchi using Chinese white radish

1.1 - (tuna casserole)

1 (worst, into the compost heap it goes)

Kitchen Notes: Everything Pumpkin

Last year's T-day desserts featuring pumpkin were clearly winners: pumpkin pound cake and the pumpkin roll with candied ginger in the cream cheese filling. Here's a listing of all the pumpkin recipes-to-date on this blog:

pumpkin pie spice
pumpkin spice scones
pumpkin fried rice
pumpkin bread with yogurt
pumpkin bread with tofu
pumpkin soup
pumpkin pound cake
pumpkin roll with candied ginger
pumpkin spice latte
pumpkin muffins
pumpkin cranberry biscotti

Should kabocha squash be included in the pumpkin recipes? After all, it is pumpkin-like in shape, cooking methods, and color. If so, here are those recipe links:

Spicy Sweet Roasted Kabocha Squash
pumpkin potage

With the autumn season close by, pumpkins will soon be available at local farms and the produce market. Here are some recipe ideas that I'll be toying with for this year's T-day:

Southern Living's Pumpkin Chips (deep fried)
Pumpkin Butter
Pumpkin Cornbread
Pumpkin Bread Pudding
Serious Eats' Pumpkin Liqueur

Workday Breakfasts to Go

This year I am trying something new. Every Sunday I make breakfast for work all at once. That's right. 5 days of breakfast stuffs that I trek to work. Between baking and eating, sometimes I'll have four dozen eggs in the fridge.

The basics

Hard-boiled eggs. I try to stay around $0.20-0.25/egg. This can range anywhere from bulk white eggs or brown eggs. I prefer brown eggs, but only because they're not white. And, I hate to break it to you but there is no such thing as "free range" for eggs nor chickens that bear them. Those happy chickens you see in all the farm-to-table marketing ads are just that.. marketing. In fact, a factory farm can still mass produce eggs and still call itself a "free range" farm. Anyhow, that's a topic for another day.

Put your 10 large eggs into a pot, fill it with enough water to cover, and put a lid on the pot. Bring the pot to a boil then let it simmer covered for 8-10 minutes. Once the timer is up, use a slotted spoon to scoop out the eggs into a large bowl filled with cold water. 

Some people like to wait. I do not. Immediately shell all the eggs and put them into a lidded container in the fridge. 70 calories per egg.

Next item.

Oatmeal with dried fruit. The dried fruit can be anything from chopped dried cherries, raisins, dried blueberries, or dried cranberries. This is one of the simplest recipes I have managed to replicate from Pinterest without a fail. About 136 calories.

1/3 c organic old fashioned oats
1 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp nonfat dry milk
5-8 raisins, cranberries, dried blueberries, or whatever (it's less than 1 tbsp)
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Put this all into an 8 oz mason jar. Put a lid on it and set it aside. Calories will vary by fruit used but not by much. At work, simply fill the jar with hot water, replace lid and screw the band so that the lid stays in place. After 15 minutes or so, the oatmeal will be done. I just eat it straight from the jar.

Organic yogurt. I am not so savvy that I own a yogurt maker. So, this is one of the many organic varieties that Trader Joe's carries. I am partial to the organic vanilla yogurt; though, the quart will only provide four days of yogurt (at 8 oz a day). 213 calories.

I supplement the fifth day with Trader Joe's mango/apricot Greek yogurt. Sure, it's a whopping 300 calories but it's also protein.

Plus coffee (50 calories). A little jolt of caffeine to start the day.

And there you have it. My weekly breakfast is just under 540 calories per morning. This lasts a lot longer than coffee and a bagel that's for sure.

Kitchen Notes: Cost to Make One Quart Almond Milk

People buy commercially available alternative milks because they believe it is healthier and as a convenience food. Here's the cost breakdown for the previous almond milk post:

• One 16 oz bottle of vanilla extract (from Costco, $6/bottle) = 96 teaspoons = $0.06/tsp
• 1 lb almond meal (from Trader Joe's, $6/lb) = 4.72 cups = $1.27/cup
• 2 Medjool dates (from Trader Joe's, $4.49/lb) = 1.25 oz = $0.35
• Assume cost of water is negligible

1 c almond meal = $1.27
1 tsp vanilla extract = $0.06
2 Medjool dates = $0.35

Total base cost: $1.33 per quart, unsweetened -or- $1.68 per quart, sweetened

About the same price as Trader Joe's private label unsweetened almond milk but without the fillers and vegetable-based thickeners.

Kitchen Notes: Ginger Beer, batch #2

I made another half-gallon batch of this today using bread yeast instead of champagne yeast. I'll find out in a couple of days if the type of yeast has any impact on the taste. You cannot use bread yeast when making hard apple cider, for example, unless you want your cider to taste like apple bread.

From the first batch, the first liter was drunk 2 days after I transferred the brew from the 1-gallon jug to the two 1-liter glass bottles. It was sweet and had a very strong ginger kick to it. The best part was the carbonation. Nice and fizzy. The second bottle was drunk a week after racking and it wasn't as sweet. It had some carbonation and it might have bordered on being slightly alcoholic. Nonetheless it's a fun experiment.

Kitchen Notes: Game Day Eats

Thinking about what to make before game day? You'll probably want to start with the easy stuff. Appetizers that people will enjoy and not make a mess as you are heating up the grill for the heavier stuff. Many of these recipes can all be done a day ahead. I'd put the potstickers into the oven on a baking tray to reheat them all up. Maybe 5-10 mins at 400 degrees F would suffice to get them extra crispy.

Here are a few ideas from this blog:

Sauces & Dips

No Mayonnaise Green Onion Sour Cream Dip
Edamame Pesto - good with crackers and sturdier chips
Fresh Salsa - just omit the canning part of the recipe

Appetizers

Pumpkin Fried Rice
Roast Duck Wings
Potstickers
Roasted Shrimp with Honey-Ginger
Soft Pretzels
Sweet Potato Fries
Baked Nachos with Black Beans and Cheese
Easy Kale Chips

Salads

Moroccan Couscous Salad
Quinoa Salad
Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Beverages

Ginger Beer - start this at least 3 days before game day. It's not quite alcoholic nor is it a soft beverage. It's somewhere in between those two. Use your best judgement if children are around.

Faux "Cheddar" Cheese aka Coconut Cheese

One of the most dangerous things to have in the pantry is all the ingredients for an experiment. Cost-wise, it isn't any cheaper than buying a gallon of milk on sale; but it does make a lot more of that cheesy substance. The coagulation is achieved by using agar agar, a vegetarian gelatin derived from seaweed; and also tapioca starch, which helps with the thickening. Before I added turmeric powder as a colorant, it tasted a tad on the salty side and had the consistency of a molten cheese sauce.

Coconut Cheese Ingredients

Also, the agar agar that I bought from Fubonn came in a two-pack of moulded agar agar bars. I used one and ground it into flakes using a mini food prep.

Coconut cheese in a parchment lined loaf pan,
looks ominous...

Since coconut oil is a solid at room temperature, as the coconut cheese cools, it will firm up. If I stick it into the refrigerator overnight, I might just be able to slice or grate it like a normal block of cheese. 

Ingredients

2 cans (800ml) coconut cream (70% or more coconut milk)
3 tbsp agar flakes
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
4 tbsp tapioca starch
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sea salt (more than this is too much)
1/4 c nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 tsp turmeric powder (optional, for color) doesn't help the taste

Directions

1. In a large pot, bring coconut milk to a boil. Add vinegar, agar flakes, and salt. Boil gently for 15 minutes until the agar dissolves completely.

2. Whisk in the remainder of the ingredients, one at a time, until everything is well combined. I put in the starch all at once and it clumped up immediately. Maybe next time I should just sprinkle and whisk it in. Cook for another 8-10 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and pour into either a greased glass bowl or a parchment paper-lined loaf pan.

4. Let cool for a few hours. It will set at room temperature. If you would like it to be firmer, for grating or slicing, put it into the fridge overnight.

Recipe ratio from All the Cooks.

[update] 2015-01-29: Well, 2 tsp of sea salt was too much. This batch made 1 lb 7 oz of faux cheese. It is so salty, I'm thinking of reheating it with some potatoes. Refrigeration did not help the consistency. It's like cutting through soft tofu. Definitely cannot "shred" it with a grater. Spreads easily.

Coconut Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

This is a freeform cookie experiment. I didn't really start with a cookie base; if I did, it started this way.. Two sticks of butter plus one cup of brown sugar with two room temperature eggs. I wasn't aiming to make a sweet cookie. Hot out of the oven, these cookies disintegrate upon eating. While they look nice out in the tray, they are hard to remove without a spoon or flat spatula. I baked a dozen on a rimmed cookie sheet and another dozen in a muffin tin. It looks like, the muffin tin is the way to go for these cookies. They spread a little, but the muffin tin helps to keep the rounded shape. I think the amount of brown sugar is plenty for the sweetness. The more I play with the cookie crumbs on a plate, the more I think this would make an excellent streusel topping for some other dessert.

Makes 3 dozen.

Coconut raisin cookies. Looks normal?

Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tbsp raw chia seeds (optional)
2 c old fashioned oatmeal, coarsely ground
1 c golden raisins
1/2 c sweetened (or unsweetened) grated coconut (optional)
1/2 c cake flour
1/4 c coconut flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
pinch of sea salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

1. Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla extract together, add eggs, then mix everything together in a large bowl.

2. Roll a tablespoon of cookie dough into a ball and place each ball into the cavity of a muffin tin.

3. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown.

Let cook on a rack.

Kitchen Notes: Hacking the Coconut

The coconut can be a very formidable opponent in the kitchen. And, granted it has taken me much longer than all the YouTube videos combined that I've watched on how to open a brown coconut. I swear, I did whack it with a hammer and to no avail. Finally, tonight It opened with minimal effort.

There's a video that shows how to open a coconut in 30 seconds. Except the prep time is 12 hours! Needless to say, this was my first attempt. I put the coconut in the freezer for 12 hours, took it out, whacked it with the hammer and nothing happened.

Back into the fridge it went for thawing.

Then, I took a philips screwdriver and a hammer and pierced the coconut's eyes. Draining the coconut of its water yielded almost a cup of coconut water. I hear it has a lot of potassium and electrolytes.

After that, I used the Alton Brown method and preheated the oven to 375 degrees F, then baked the coconut for 15 minutes. The coconut isn't that hot out of the oven, but you'll still want to wear an oven mitt because of the chaff of the outer husk. Give the coconut a few good whacks with the hammer and the shell will start to crack and come off. Use a vegetable peeler to peel off the stubborn inner skin.

What you should have left is a whole coconut, minus the outer hard shell. At least I didn't have to pry the meat out of the shell with a paring knife and scrape off the inner brown skin.

A peeled coconut, ready for use

Salsa

Making salsa is neither hard nor time consuming, but having all the necessary ingredients on hand is the troublesome part. There is certainly some spice to it. And, in early autumn, all of these ingredients are in season. The recipe ratio comes from Harold Shifflett's YouTube video.

Makes 10 pints

Lots of salsa for the winter

Ingredients

10 pounds fresh tomatoes, any variety
8 tomatillos
8 jalapenos
4 red chilis
2 green bell peppers
1 bunch fresh cilantro
2 heads of garlic, cloves removed
4 tbsp lime or lemon juice
4 tbsp kosher salt or sea salt (this tastes salty to me, maybe next time start with 3 tbsp)

Directions

1. Prepare ingredients for the food prep:

Wash and core tomatoes. Slice into wedges and set aside.
Wash and de-stem hot peppers (red chilis and jalapenos). Set aside.
Wash and core the bell pepper. Discard seeds. Roughly chop.
Discard the outer hull of the tomatillos. Wash fruit and set aside.
Peel outer layer then roughly chop the onion(s).
Wash cilantro bunch, remove brown leaves and stems. Roughly chop and set aside.
Peel and trim hard end from garlic cloves. Set aside.

2. Work in batches. Toss everything except the salt and lemon juice into a food prep or blender and puree until no big chunks remain.

3. Pour puree into a large stockpot, add 1 tbsp of salt at a time, add lemon or lime juice. Boil for 1.5 hours or until the salsa reaches a proper consistency (not too watery, not too chunky).

4. Process in a hot water canning bath for 10 minutes.

Kitchen Notes: Paneer vs Farmer's Cheese

I had a half of a half gallon of milk that was stamped for today. I never know what that date stamp means, sell by or use by; but for liquid dairy, my brain thinks it means the latter. So, to not drink endless cups of hot chocolate or warm milk, I turned it into cheese with some help from lemon juice. The process of making paneer is identical to making farmers cheese. The former is not salted but the latter is. Plus, paneer is a pressed cheese.. which essentially means that it is drained for longer with heavy things on top of the cheesecloth than farmers cheese.

Once farmers cheese is done, you could stir heavy cream back into it to make cream cheese and blend it up to make it smooth. You can also mix fresh herbs into it and re-wrap the cheese in wax paper or cheesecloth to make an herbed cheese; kind of how you'd make a herbed butter. But, alas, I am still talking about farmers cheese. Onto the paneer...

Paneer is essentially cottage cheese, the large or small curds of the cheesemaking process. Paneer is a bit drier than farmers cheese and is typically cut into cubes then floured for cooking in savory dishes. I don't know how much milk I started with (less than a half gallon), but it made 8 oz of cheese curds. I put the liquid whey in a covered container in the fridge. If I don't use it, the whey will get composted. The whey can be used in place of water for any bread recipe. That's the best use I've found.

Ingredients

some quantity of whole cow milk
2+ tbsp lemon juice (up to 4 tbsp per gallon of milk)

Directions

Bring milk to a rolling boil (bubbles crest the surface and can't be stirred down) and add lemon juice. Stir, stir, stir. Don't let the milk burn. When I turned off the heat and added the lemon juice, curds wouldn't form for me. So I boiled the milk and lemon juice together and that worked. This whole process of the curds forming should take less than 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and let the mixture cool for a half hour before straining into a cheesecloth-lined strainer. Rinse the curds (this is a step that I forgot to do and it doesn't break the process, it's just that my cheese will taste a little lemony). Wrap curds in cheesecloth and put it inside a colander with holes. Set something heavy on top of the cheese so that more water will be pressed out. I used another pot filled with water. The second draining should take a few hours as the cheese cools.

The biggest differences in preparation process is the use of lemon juice (vs white vinegar, though any type of fruit acid will do) and the fact that the curds are washed before pressing.

Kitchen Note: About that Squash

Since November I had a couple of squashes sitting on my kitchen counter. The butternut squash sat in the corner and pretty much looked as though it could have sat there for a few more months before showing any signs of degradation. The kabocha squash, on the other hand, lost its beautiful greenish-orange hue and turned into an unappetizing color. But, it too fared well for how long it sat around doing nothing. 

Now, the butternut squash has a mildly sweet taste to it and traditionally I just halve it, scoop its seeds out and bake it up with a drizzling of olive oil and brown sugar. With the kabocha squash I wanted to simulate deep frying, but since the rind cured to a very hard texture, I couldn't slice it with the knives I had on hand. In fact, I couldn't remove the stem at all before baking. Instead, I stabbed it repeatedly with a chef knife to hasten its baking time.

I ended up tossing the roasted flesh of both squashes into a slow cooker and cooked it into a nice winter soup. There is still something amiss in the flavor, but the smooth, soupy texture is there.

Ingredients

One kabocha squash, roasted (seeds, strings and rind removed)
One butternut squash, roasted (seeds, strings and rind removed)
1 quart organic chicken broth
random spices: ground lemongrass powder, garlic powder, thyme, paprika
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. On a rimmed baking sheet, scoop out seeds and place halves of a butternut squash cut-side down and drizzle lightly with olive oil. On a second rimmed baking sheet, halve or stab a kabocha squash. Bake both at 400 degrees for an hour. Let cool before handling. Scoop out the flesh from both squashes and put into the bowl of a slow cooker.

2. To the slow cooker: add chicken broth, spices, salt and black pepper. Cook for 8 hours on low. Blend together with an immersion blender. Serve hot.

3. If it is too thick, thin the soup with more broth.

Makes 3 quarts.

Kitchen Notes: Hard Apple Cider

A month after I started fermenting a batch, I thought I should write up the recipe.. you know, in case I get the urge to make more. I didn't actually start with a recipe; just a process. Despite Washington state being a leading producer of apples in the US, procuring fresh pressed apple cider is not cheap. For raw, unpasteurized cider, it costed $4/half gallon locally procured. 

2013-11-08, day 2 fermentation going strong

Timeline

Nov 3 - procured equipment (1 gallon glass jug w/ cap, fermentation lock)
Nov 7 - added yeast to fresh sweet cider
Nov 16 - added 1/8 tsp pectin enzyme (for liquid clarity)
Dec 1 - CO2 has stopped and the water in the fermentation lock has leveled out
Dec 14 - a lot of sediment at the bottom

Batch 1 Ingredients

1 gallon fresh pressed apple cider (raw, unpastuerized)
1/2 packet champagne yeast

I used the potassium metabisulfite powder (also known as a Campden tablet) to sterilize the gallon-size glass jug, as well as the liquid funnel, fermentation lock, stopper, etc. Wikipedia says that you can also use this stuff to neutralize tear gas. I didn't add any directly to the cider to kill off the wild yeast. I'll just have to wait and see what happens to the end product.

After two weeks at an average kitchen temp of 62 degrees F, the batch stopped producing CO2. At the moment, all I need to do is transfer the fermented liquid to clean containers and then maybe let that sit for another three months.

This process is a result of looking at the recipes at Imbibe Magazine. Nearly every site says to pasteurize the cider with heat (not to let it boil) or use a Campden tablet. I did not do this step. There's a chance that the wild yeast will make the cider taste better, or worse. I want to see what impact the wild yeast has on it. Besides, I have another gallon of raw sweet cider in the freezer if I were to make a second batch.

2013-12-14, have not touched the cider. It's still in the fermenting container. Has a much lighter, blonde color after the pectin enzyme was added. And, definitely does not smell like sweet cider anymore. Smells alcoholic.