eG Foodblog: Pierogi (2011) - Rollin' the bon temps on the Left Co

[Pierogi]

OK, so what *ELSE* went on in the little kitchen today?

Well....we got this ready for lunches/mid-day snacks during the week

That's some homemade hummus. I typically make that about once a month, and eat it for lunch/snackies during the week. I rotate it during the month with flavored cream cheese and crackers, regular cheese & cold cuts with crackers, and cottage cheese I tart up with some sour cream, chopped scallions and Lawry's (oh...the shame) seasoned salt and seasoned pepper. What can I say, the cottage cheese is comfort food. Mom used to make it for us when I was a kid.

Funny, I absolutely loathe eating the same thing for dinner twice in a week, or even twice in a month, but eating the same thing for lunch/snackies doesn't bother me.

Anyway, you hit me on a hummus week.

Then there was this...

That we'll use tomorrow.

And this....which we'll use on Monday:

And of course, I was surrounded by circling vultures the entire time

They wanted mushrooms, and they wanted them badly....I was unable to shoot the amount of 'shrooms the Veggie Monsters scarfed (mushrooms ! REALLY, what doges eat MUSHROOMS??), due to the pressure of the circling vultures AND the King Cake being done at that moment AND the mix in the frying pan trying to burn, but trust me, they ate about 3 half-dollar size mushrooms a piece. Weird animals. And yes, they need to be groomed REALLY badly.

[Pierogi]

Coming tomorrow...

A field trip (yay !)

Obligatory and mandatory kitchen, pantry and fridge shots.

American comfort food for dinner.

Another delightful adult beverage, no doubt. One thing I am eternally grateful to eG for is introducing me to cocktails other than Margaritas and a dry Martini. Who KNEW there was a whole world of brown liquor out there? At least I had enough sense to choose gin Martinis.

Probably more Vulture Dogs shots. Maybe I'll even trim Rosie's bangs so you can see her sweet face again.

And as a final send-off to today's efforts...please...

Note to the Guiness World Record people

This is the absolute BIGGEST load of dishes I've ever had when I was cooking only for myself ! I've done worse when entertaining, but for one, this is a record.

Yeeeee-IKES !

Night all.

[Pierogi]

I looked all over NOLA for this cookbook when we were there last spring and couldn't find it. I thought it was an amazing concept. Thanks for the reminder - I just added it to my amazon wishlist! Looking forward to your week!

Kim (and Heidi) you will LOVE this book. It's just really beautiful, and really so meaningful, especially if you love New Orleans and its culture and food traditions. All of the recipes I've made from it have been winners.

[Shelby]

OK, there's a bit of a lull before it's time to cook dinner (and have a delightful adult beverage....) so let's get caught up on what's gone on in the little kitchen today.

First off, it occurs to me that I haven't talked about what I actually ATE today. Well, that's 'cause I really didn't eat much, and it was really not very interesting. I had a storebought Chinese almond cookie for breakfast, mainly just to get something into my tummy other than medication ! About an hour later, I had a big glass of buttermilk, and then later this afternoon, a tangerine. That'll probably be pretty typical for the week. I've never been much of a breakfast eater, and now that I'm not working, I find I don't even usually want too much of a lunch. Don't get me wrong, I'll EAT if its put in front of me. I guess it has to do with not being a morning person...

So, the baking project is done, and if I say so myself, I'm pretty impressed. Another effort I'd been wanting to try, and had never made before. We'll see how it tastes later, let's see how it went together now.

When last we left our dough, it was rising.

I'd say it doubled nicely

Dough rolled out

Some melted butter would be nice

So would some cinnamon and brown sugar

All rolled up and slashed to show the pretties

Doubled again

Out of the oven

Needs some glaze and decoration

Annndddd, voila ! A King Cake to celebrate Mardi Gras weekend with !

Nope, I did *NOT* forget the bean !

THAT looks yummy!

I forget. What happens if I get the piece with the bean in it?

OH and thank you so much for showing the Louisiana cookbook. I bought one for me and one for my mom and stepdad!(My stepdad is from there)

Edited March 6, 2011 by Shelby (log)

[Shelby]

Oh, and Shelby, it's about 9:30 at night, and all the windows are open.....

Sorry.

But it *is* supposed to drop by about 10 or 15 degrees tomorrow, and rain on Monday. We'll see...

You're killing me.

[christine007]

Roberta, your King cake looks wonderful!

And you mentioned Polish cooking are you maybe doing stuffed cabbage? I love that more than almost anything. we had it not long ago and a craft fair at a Polish church, with buttered rye bread, I almost died and went to heaven.

My German Shep is Malachai Brock Nathaniel, we usually call him kaiser as a nick name.

your dogs are just fluffly balls of love!

[Pierogi]

....

I forget. What happens if I get the piece with the bean in it?

....

*YOU* get to bring the next King Cake !

Oh, and Shelby, it's about 9:30 at night, and all the windows are open.....

You're killing me.

Hey, we gotta have *some* perqs for living with earthquakes and the 3-hour daily commute.

[Pierogi]

Roberta, your King cake looks wonderful!

And you mentioned Polish cooking are you maybe doing stuffed cabbage? I love that more than almost anything. we had it not long ago and a craft fair at a Polish church, with buttered rye bread, I almost died and went to heaven.

My German Shep is Malachai Brock Nathaniel, we usually call him kaiser as a nick name.

your dogs are just fluffly balls of love!

Thanks Christine. It tastes really good as well. I'm very pleased with it.

I had toyed with the idea of making cabbage rolls, but I posted a step-by-step of my techinque over here in the eG Cabbage Roll Cookoff thread. So not this time, although I do sorely need to make some again soon. No, just stay tuned to see what good old rib-sticking dish I have up my sleeve.

And yes, good cabbage rolls are sublime. Bad cabbage rolls are very, very bad.

[Pierogi]

All right ! I'm back from the field trip and I have photographic evidence ! Let me get today's project started, and I'll be back to share some field trip pics, and the promised kitchen tour (such as it is...).

See all y'all in a bit !

[Jon Savage]

Excellent foodblog so far Roberta thanks! Which CSA are you using?

[Pierogi]

Well, one of today's projects is......

The technique I use most, and probably have the most success with, is in this article from "Cuisine at Home" magazine a few years back. I'm still enough of a novice at baking that I have a hard time working with the very wet doughs that are needed for the nice, crusty rustic loaves. I have Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice", but haven't used it too much. I keep forgetting to start the process early enough, and his doughs are VERY wet so I have troubles shaping them. This "Cuisine at Home" method seems to be a happy medium for me. It's still a very wet, soft dough, but I can work with it, especially if I make a boule. I still haven't mastered shaping baguettes.

So, remember this from yesterday, that I said we'd come back to?

Here it is after an overnight rest in the fridge.

Look at that lovely gluten.

Starting to look like dough...

It's on its first rise now, so we'll take a little look around Long Beach for a while.

[Pierogi]

Long Beach has, I think, more Farmers' Markets per capita than any other city in the area. We have four every week. For a population our size, that's quite a lot. There's one downtown on Friday, which I believe is the largest, one in the north end of the city on Thursday afternoons, and two on Sundays; one in one of the marinas, and the newest, which is about 2 miles from my house (wow, run-on sentence, much?) This one's only been open for about 3 months, and is really nice, because it's not too crowded. The one in the marina can be quite a zoo....

So, let's head over to the Eastside Farmer's Market, held in the parking lot of an office complex on the edge of Long Beach Airport.

Lots of produce stalls:

Looks like strawberries are starting to come in:

Check out the colors on this cauliflower:

This vendor had a nicely arranged display:

To keep the kiddies occupied, there's a pony ride...

...and a petting zoo

Lots of prepared food, pick a cuisine, any cuisine

Some plants, perhaps?

Or you *KNOW* you're craving some Thin Mints

And doesn't EVERY Farmers' Market need an Elvis Impersonator?

One final vendor

I was particularly impressed with this stall's selection. Everything from fresh fava beans (also, no "Keee-auntie") to nopales, both whole, or already cut and bagged for you.

Field trip number 1 in the books. Maybe some fridge shots next...?

[Pierogi]

One more shot from the Farmers' Market....

'Cause you just GOTTA love "The Peanut Dudes" !

[Pierogi]

Excellent foodblog so far Roberta thanks! Which CSA are you using?

Thanks Jons !

Surely you don't want me to give away all my cliffhangers yet, do you ?

[Dejah]

Is this the same area where the Queen Mary is docked as a hotel? I remember back early 1970s when hubby and I were treking around California in our Westphalia camper, we actually camped in the parking lot close to a restaurant where we had supper.

Sure doesn't look the same now! We did tour the ship the next morning.

Now, THAT'S what I'd call a farmer's market. Did you buy anything?

Thos strawberries look delicious. I wonder if our "California" strawberries come from the same farm?

[Pierogi]

KITCHEN TOUR !

Don't get toooo excited, its a SMALL kitchen. However, one other thing eG has done for me is made me stop kvetching about how small it is. When I see some of the other member's kitchens, especially those in Asia and Europe, I realize I gots nothin' to gripe about.

View from the back door

To the left of the dishwasher is the door into the living room/dinette area. To the left of THAT door is a pass through breakfast bar that runs the length of that wall, about 6 feet or so.

Reverse view from above

The main work area

The black hole of a corner

And the unfortunately placed spice cabinet

Unfortunately placed because every time I need a spice or dried herb, I have to MOOVE the dishwasher and MOOOVE the storage cart and MOOOOOVE the garbage and recyling bins. So I try to gather all the spices for the meal in one shot ! Saves angst. BTW, the spice cabinet used to be one of those old, tilt-down ironing boards. Just about everyone in this neighborhood did exactly the same thing with theirs !

[Jon Savage]

Excellent foodblog so far Roberta thanks! Which CSA are you using?

Thanks Jons !

Surely you don't want me to give away all my cliffhangers yet, do you ?

I can wait! I've been pretty happy using farmfreshtoyou.com as it offers more flexibility than traditional CSAs which is important since my wife is often away for a month or so at a time and I can scale back the deliveries to every other week or whatever other frequency suits.

The Farmers markets here in Long Beach are certainly a nice benefit to have. I work downtown so the Friday market is one I go to most often.

Are you going to explore some of the Cambodian markets on Anaheim this week?

Intresting factoid- Long Beach has a huge Cambodian community, sorta like Little Saigon is to the Vietnamese enclave which is just South of here.

[IowaDee]

Wish I could "read" your refrigerator. Bet there are some good stories stuck on it.

Other than an attack of homesickness, I'm so enjoying your blog. I grew up in the Mar Vista-

Venice area. My folks both worked at McDonald Douglas in Long Beach.

Hubby and I were back there on a trip and stayed on the Queen Mary. What fun. And your aquarium is world class!

[Pierogi]

COOKBOOK TOUR !

Storage rack between fridge & broom closet

Top of cabinets above fridge

Aaaannnddd, cupboards

[Pierogi]

PANTRY AND FRIDGE TOUR !

Fridge door

Inside fridge

Freezer inside

Freezer door

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the bungee cord holding stuff on the top shelf in the door is tres ghetto....they no longer make the part that broke.

No, it had *nothing* to do with overstuffing it, why do you ask?

[nikkib]

ahhh umm my fridge.....

Reasons like this and my 14 hour average working day make me love these foodblogs even more!!! Cant wait to see what you get up to this week

[Pierogi]

FRIDGE & PANTRY TOUR - PART DEUX

As I was saying before I was so rudely drawn away from the computer....

Canned goods pantry

Miscellaneous bakery supplies pantry

3-shelf dry goods pantry

And the last dark, scary corner....

The kitchen actually has a good deal of cabinet space. However, it is woefully inadequate in drawer space. I only have 5, of which 2 are about 18-inches deep. One works for towels, but one is a hopless tangle of bulky and infrequently used utensils (biscuit cutters, small plastic mandoline, funnels, etc., etc., etc.) That and the spice cabinet are the thorns in my cooking side.

So, the only way to keep small tools and utensils handy, and somewhat organized to have them in crocks and tall mugs in an otherwise also extremely useless space behind the sink. It looks a mess and very cluttered, but it works. And since I use most of them at least once a week, guess in the long run, it's probably more convenient than opening and closing drawers all the time.

Time to bake the bread and get dinner rolling. And we'll see what adult beverage fills the bill tonight as well.

Back after clean-up.

[Jon Savage]

May I suggest a martini?

[llc45]

Love the bungee cord idea - the holder in my basement fridge keeps popping out sending all of our mixers onto the floor. Amazed out how organized your fridge shelves are.

[kayb]

Loving the blog! (Just got caught up on the first two days, after spending a week out of town with the brand new grandchild!)

Inquiring minds want to know -- was that a sugar bowl in the hummus ingredients pic? Don't know that I ever heard of sugar in hummus; share a recipe?

As a Kitchenaid noob, I'm looking forward particularly to the breadbaking part of your week. I missed my breadbaking the past two weeks, and will be anxious to get back into it this next weekend.

New Orleans cuisine rules. Will be ordering Cooking Up A Storm.

And the furbabies are adorable! Lucy Lu says to tell them Hi from her.