Chicken and Vegetable Kabobs

Robyn and I went camping up in Sonoma Coast this weekend! It is really beautiful out there, and I always enjoy a chance to make a fire and sleep under the stars.

Sleeping under the stars doesn't mean we have to rough it with food though!

I made these delicious chicken kabobs and let them marinate overnight in a ziplock bag before grilling them. They were fantastic!

Cooking them over an open fire adds a dimension of flavor. Using untreated all natural firewood and charcoal also adds an additional subtle flavor!


To make a fire, I prefer the criss-cross method of laying down firewood. Place a few bbq chips down on the ground in rows, so they are touching each other. Place dried grass, dried pinecones, dried leaves and dried pine needles. Usually just leaves and small branches that have already fallen from trees.

Make a small tee-pee of the twigs and place the dried grass and needles inside the tee-pee. Light the grass with a match or flint if you are feeling all Bear Grylls.

Once that gets going, lay down two low pieces of wood. Start laying down smaller kinderling in a criss-cross fashion, 2 piece of small wood on each side. This helps create walls for the fire, so if there is a strong wind, it won't blow the fire out. The center should still be open to fire the fire oxygen and room to breathe. You can slowly add your dried grass, pine needles etc into the fire from that above hatch. As the fire grows, the original small wood pieces will burn up. Slowly add them to the fire and they will continue to burn and release heat slowly, creating your charcoal.

These wood pieces then serve as your skewer holders when you are grilling! I covered the logs with a piece of aluminum foil, so the chicken wouldn't touch the log directly.

Chicken Kabob recipe
1 lbs chicken, cut into cubes
Ground Fennel
Harrisa
Ras el Hanout
Vegetable or olive oil
lemon juice

Grind the fennel by hand and add the various spices. Add the vegetable oil and stir.

Take chicken and add to a zip lock bag. Add the spice mixture and seal the bag, making sure all the air is out.

Mix the ingredients into the chicken through the ziplock bag.

Marinate in the refrigerator or cooler for a few hours or overnight.

I don't add vegetables to my meat skewers because I don't want the vegetables to get contaminated. Also, vegetables will cook at a different temperature from the chicken, so you will either have cooked chicken and overcook vegetables, or cooked vegetables and under cooked chicken. I usually put the chicken directly on the hot logs of wood (with Aluminum foil to prevent ash from getting on the chicken) and the vegetables on a higher rack farther away from the fire.

Kombucha

Recently, Katie, a friend of ours, gave us a Kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast), which allows us to brew Kombucha.

I had Kombucha once or twice at Whole Foods, and I have to say, I was not very impressed at all. The only way I could describe the taste was "weird".

After talking with our friend Katie, I decided to give it another go. I am glad I did! I find that brewing your own Kombucha yields a much tastier elixir than the commercially made variety. I am not sure why, but I think commercially made Kombucha adds more sugar to their mix to allow the SCOBY to grow quicker and ferment faster, in order to produce more Kombucha quicker. Another reason could be the type of tea they use.


Anyways, I have made 3 batches of Kombucha so far. Two turned out very good, and one went horribly wrong.

Let me share with you what I have learned about brewing Kombucha.

First, it is really best to make this stuff in large batches. It takes a while for it to ferment, and you have to reserve some of your batch as a starter for the next batch. So it is best to make a lot of it. In the picture above, the glass was so small, I really finished it off in just a day or two...

This leads to my second suggestion: It really helps to have the right sized containers to brew and then store your Kombucha.

My first batch turned out good. The only problem was that I was using a small flower sized jar, so there wasn't a lot of it. The SCOBY started floating to the top, which made it difficult to pour out the Kombucha to drink it.

I then purchased 2 large glass jars (1 gallon capacity each) with spigots. These turned out much better as they could hold a larger volume. Also the circumference of the top was much wider, so the SCOBY could really spread out and grow.

Third, the SCOBY needs four things to grow and spit out low doses of alcohol: 1) a clean sterile environment 2) a dark place  3) oxygen  and 4) pure white sugar (don't use brown sugar or any other type).

For the first requirement, make sure that the glass jar is clean-wash it out with hot water and soap, or put it through the dishwashing machine. (Note, some glass jars, like the one I got, cannot go through the dishwasher, so you have to wash them by hand. Use a clean sponge and hot water).

SCOBYs hate sunlight, so be sure to cover the jar with a cloth towel to prevent sunlight coming in. I tuck mine into a corner on my kitchen counter, so it is away from everything else and far from sunlight.

Make sure that wherever you decide to store your kombucha container for the fermentation process is clean and relatively free of dust. I will give the whole area a good cleaning the day before, just to make sure everything is clean. You want to make sure the area is relatively free of dust,  cover the top of your glass jar with a clean cloth kitchen towel. Secure it with a strong rubber band around the lip of the jar. This will give the SCOBY enough oxygen. I made the mistake of covering my jar with the glass cover that was provided with the jars, and my SCOBY died from suffocation (see my tips below).

SCOBYs need lots of food to grow and brew Kombucha. Their food is pure white refined sugar. Don't try to use brown sugar or other types, it just won't work out. Also, be very exact with the amount of sugar you use--too little will starve your SCOBY and too much will kill it.

The best place to get a SCOBY is from someone who brews Kombucha regularly. Basically, for each batch of Kombucha you brew, you will grow a new SCOBY. There is only so much Kombucha that any one person can brew, so there is bound to be extra SCOBYs hanging around. Ask around with friends, family and co-workers to see if they brew, and reserve one of their SCOBYs.

Ingredients
2-3 quarts of water (1 quart is 4 cups)
1 cup of white refined sugar
4 teabags (or 4 spoonfuls of loose tea)
1 glass jar, 1 gallon capacity
Kombucha starter (1 bottle of Kombucha, either commercially bought or your own from a previous batch)
1 SCOBY
Ginger, berries or other flavoring agents (optional)

The key to Kombucha is the proper ratio of tea to sugar, and a good healthy SCOBY. The ratio above works fairly well (8 cups of water to 1 cup sugar). Depending on the size of your container, you can adjust that ratio up or down.

The container I use is 17 cups. I usually like to have some space at the top of my jar, so I use 16 cups of water (4 quarts), 2 cups of sugar.  I included some other basic ratios you can use depending on the size of your container:

1 cup water=1/8 cup sugar
2 cups water=.25 cups sugar
3 cups water=.25 cups sugar

4 cups water=.5 cups sugar

6 cups water=.5 cups sugar2 quarts (8 cups) water =1 cup sugar
3 quarts (12 cups) water =1.5 cups sugar
4 quarts  (16 cups) water=2 cups sugar
4.25 (17 cups) quarts water =2 1/8 cups sugar



Procedure
Bring the water to a boil and brew your tea. I have those glass ice tea dispensers which hold 1 gallon (4.8 quarts or 19 cups) of water. So I usually will put 3 quarts (12 cups) of water to boil. This way, even after evaporation while boiling, there will still be plenty of room for my SCOBY and the 1 bottle of Kombucha starter. You can use any type of tea you want to. I have been using a mango tropical tea I found in Chinatown in San Francisco, and it has been wonderful. Katie, who is my Kombucha Doctor, uses Trader Joe's Pomegranate White Tea. Basically the type of tea you use will determine your flavor profile for the Kombucha. It is much easier to use tea that is in tea bags, but if you have a small hand strainer, loose tea works equally as well.

Once your tea is brewed, remove the tea bags or loose tea leaves and add the sugar. Stir it for a few seconds to dissolve the sugar.

At this point, let the tea cool to room temperature. This is a very important step because hot or even warm water will kill your SCOBY! I usually brew my tea on a Friday night, and let it sit out overnight with the lid on. By Saturday morning it is completely cooled.

Remove the tea bags or strain out the loose tea leaves. The tea will be super sweet at this point!

Add one bottle of Kombucha as a starter to your brewing container. Transfer the tea to your brewing container. I use glass jars with 1 gallon capacity.

Take your SCOBY and run it under cold water to clean it off. Emphasis on cold water, as hot or warm water will kill the SCOBY. Sometimes you will get some dark spots on the SCOBY so it is best to gently pick those off.

Place your SCOBY in the jar with the newly brewed tea.  Cover with a clean cloth towel and secure it with a rubber band.

Store the container on a countertop away from food and sunlight. Let it sit for 3 or 4 weeks. As summer approaches it will get hotter and this will speed up the fermentation process, so it might only take 2 weeks.

After about 2 weeks, taste the Kombucha. If you have a spigot on your jar, this is easy to do. If not, extract some with a straw. The longer you leave it, the less sweet it will get and the more sour it will become (it will eat up all the sugar).

You can also smell the Kombucha through the cloth towel on the top of the jar. It should smell fragrant. If it smells rotten or foul, something has gone awry!

Additionally, during this time a new SCOBY should be growing in your jar. Sometimes it will grow directly on top of your existing SCOBY, sometimes it will grown underneath your existing SCOBY.

In the picture on the right, you can see the newer smaller SCOBY on the left, next to the older SCOBY on the right.











This is a another shot of it. As you can see, the newer, smaller SCOBY has formed on the left, next to the older, larger SCOBY on the right.

















When it gets the way you want it, your are ready for bottling!

The SCOBY still needs food, and if things went well you should have 2 SCOBYs. At this point you have 2 options:

1) Continue the brewing cycle by brewing another batch of tea and start the process over, using the new SCOBY with this new batch of tea

Or

2) Give one of your SCOBYs away to a friend. If you give it away, I think it would be best to place it into a ziplock bag and give it to them straight away. You don't want the SCOBY out of solution for very long.

If you choose to continue the brewing cycle, take one of the original Kombucha bottles you purchased from the store for the Kombucha starter and fill it with your newly brewed Kombucha. This will serve as your starter for the next batch. Start brewing more tea and start the process over again.

Then, take the remainder of the Kombucha and pour it into a large glass bottle (I use a glass bottle that had apple juice in it originally). Cap it off. At this point, you can refrigerate the Kombucha. However, if you want it even more bubbly, you can take the large glass bottle and leave it out to sit at room temperature for a least a week before refrigeration.


I recently purchased some SLOM glass bottles at Ikea with a plastic stopper on them. These are really good because they really lock in the air. It made for a very bubbly kombucha. Be warned though--they bottle really explodes when you release the cap! I had filled these bottles to the top and then left them for a week. When I took the cap off, this is what happened:





























For additional flavor, I will usually peel and slice ginger and add that to the bottle. This gives it a really good flavor and tastes something like ginger ale.

When things go wrong and other tips
You are dealing with yeasts, bacteria and other live cultures. Sometimes things go wrong. When you are brewing your Kombucha and something looks "weird", trust your instincts and throw the SCOBY and the Kombucha away and start again. You don't want to risk getting sick.

One batch I was making went horribly wrong. Instead of putting a cloth towel over the top, I decided to put the glass top that came with the dispenser. My SCOBY started suffocating from the lack of oxygen and started to turn black, with lots of dark strands. It smelled funky, not the fragrant the way the Kombucha is supposed to taste. The SCOBY had lots of black spots on it as well.
I threw both the Kombucha and the SCOBY out and started again.






























Sometimes the new SCOBY will attach itself to the existing SCOBY, making it difficult to separate them for a new batch. Try running them under cold water and gently separating them. If that doesn't work. simply cut the SCOBY in half and place half in each jar. The SCOBY is strong and will start to grow again. As you can see in the two pictures on the right, the newer, smaller SCOBY is growing directly on top of the older, larger SCOBY. I had to just cut the whole thing in half, but it still worked fine!

Yam Fries

My friend Jill is a fantastic cook! She made these for me and they were off the hook! The best part is that yams are super healthy for you. Go figure--super healthy and delicious!

This recipe is for 1 medium to large yam. Multiply the recipe as needed.

Ingredients
1 medium/large yam, cut into wedges (about 1/4 inch thick)
1 minced garlic clove
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Coconut oil




I will usually cut one yam half. Then cut that half into 2 halves. Then cut 1 of those halves into halves again. (1 yam can be cut into 8 large wedges this way).

Spread the cut yams on a baking sheet.

Lightly coat the yams with coconut oil. If you don't have coconut oil, any other vegetable oil will do.
The key word is lightly coat. You just need a little oil to make the rosemary and garlic stick. I have overdone it with the coconut oil before, and it just gets the yams all soggy.











Mix the herbs and the garlic together and massage them into the cut yams.


















Bake at 425 to 450 until tender and desired crispiness, approximately 15-20 minutes.

Serve with Aioli, homemade ketchup or Moroccan ketchup!

Spicy Red Curry with Baked Tofu

Thai's make the best curry! Although I will always like Indian or Japanese curry, Thai curry is just damn tasty! When I was backpacking in Thailand, I could never get enough of Red Curry with a bowl of rice. Simple and delicious!

This dish works well with beef, but I have also made it with chicken or vegetables. This variant uses baked tofu, which lends it a delicious chewy texture!

As with all Thai curries, I like to start out by adding the curry paste to only a small amount of coconut milk to develop a deep flavor. I then cook the meat (or tofu in this case) in this small amount of coconut milk before adding additional coconut milk and other vegetables.

Ingredients
Vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon
2 teaspoons red curry paste, or to taste
2 Shallots, sliced
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon paprika
1 recipe for baked tofu, cut into cubes
1/2 cup rich dark chicken stock, or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons fish sauce (use soy sauce if you want it vegetarian)
2 tablespoons sugar
3 kaffir lime leaves, cut into fine slivers
2 cups canned bamboo shoots
1/2 red bell pepper, julienned
20 fresh basil leaves (Thai or Italian)
8 fresh cilantro springs (for garnish)

Apply an even coat of vegetable oil in a wok. Heat over medium heat until the oil is hot, but not smoking. Add curry paste and stir it into the hot oil for 30 seconds to a minute, or until it incorporates into the oil. Add shallots and stir fry for 1 minute, until fragrant.

Add 1/2 cup of coconut milk and stir for 2 minutes, making sure the coconut milk does not come to a boil.

















Add the cumin, coriander and paprika and stir to dissolve the spices and incorporate.
















Add the beef, chicken or tofu and gently stir fry for 1 minute.




















Add the remaining 1 cup of coconut milk, chicken or vegetable stock, fish sauce, sugar, lime leaves and bamboo shoots. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes.

Add the red bell pepper and the basil and remove from heat.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with steamed rice.

Delicious!

Mom's Cheese Cake

This is a family favorite! I love this cheesecake, it has the right balance between sweet, tart and sublime! This is my mom's recipe and it is absolutely fantastic! She makes it as a sheet cake, so there are plenty of pieces to go around!

I find this cake stands on its own, you really don't need any additional sauces for it. If you want to get fancy, you could put boil a few strips of lemon in syrup or sugary water for a few minutes to give it a bit more zing! Or you could put a few fresh strawberries on the cake. Or make a strawberry rose sauce and drizzle that over the cake. Or fresh blueberries...the possibilities are endless.

The only addition that I made to my mom's recipe is that I added some cardamon to the crust, which gave it a wonderful flavor!

Crust
2 cups graham crackers, crushed
1 stick melted butter (1/4 lbs or 4 oz)
Cardamon (optional)

Filling
3 eight oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
5 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

Topping
1 pint sour cream
5 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp vanilla


Crust
Mix graham crackers and melted butter and press into the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan, making sure to cover the whole pan.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream Cheese Filling
Remove cream cheese and butter from refrigerator and bring to room temperature.

Once the cream cheese and the butter have come to room temperature, cream with an electric mixer until smooth. I made mine with the Kitchen Aid Electric Mixer, which worked wonderful!

Add eggs, one at a time, making sure to beat the eggs into the batter thoroughly, before adding the next egg. You want to have this mixture be extremely smooth, so I usually let the Kitchen Aid go at it for several minutes.

At first the cream cheese will stick and clump around the mixer. Don't worry about it and let it keep on mixing! You can periodically scrape off some of the cream cheese from the wires and add it back into the mix.


After a while the batter should look something like this. Once it gets to this consistency, add the sugar, vanilla and salt and beat until well blended.
















Assembly
Pour the cream cheese filling onto of the graham cracker crust and spread evenly. Use a gentle hand, because you don't want the spatula to touch the crust, otherwise the graham cracker crust will get into and mix with the filling. You will be putting frosting over this layer, so if some gets mixed up, its not the end of the world (see the bottom right corner to see where I messed up!)









Pop in the oven and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.
Increase the oven temperature to 450 and wait till the oven comes up to temperature. 
















Topping
While the oven is heating up to 450, beat sour cream, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Set aside.






















After 5 minutes of cooling, spread the sour cream topping evenly on the top layer of the cake. See, it takes care of that little mess we had at the bottom right corner!

Bake an additional 5 minutes at 450.







The finished product should look relatively smooth:















I usually will let it come down to room temperature and pop it in the fridge to serve cold.

Fish Linguine

Robyn and I were watching Jamie Oliver on TV and he made this dish. Its really simple to prepare and absolutely delicious! You can find his recipe on The Food Network.

The recipe is Sicilian and calls for fresh sardines. Jamie Oliver used red mullet fillets on the show. I made mine with fillets that were on sale at the grocery store.

Ingredients
1 garlic clove, grated
1 bulb fennel, tops removed and reserved, grated
4 anchovies
1/2 red onion
Pinch of salt
2 red mullet fillets, skin on, scaled and bones removed (any white fish fillet will do)
1 lemon, zested
Splash of white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
1 red chile, seeds removed and finely chopped
9 oz dried linguine

Procedure
In a large stockpot, heat olive oil. Add the grated garlic and fennel and stir fry for a few minutes to soften them.















Add the anchovies and red onion. Saute, but do not let the onions brown.
















Add the salt then lay the fish fillets on top, skin side up. Sprinkle with the lemon zest, and pour a little white wine to stop everything from frying, and start stewing.

Add a good bit of olive oil, some pepper and the chile. Turn the heat down. Juice 1/2 the lemon and add to the fish.












Add the fennel tops.















Meanwhile, cook the linguine in boiling salted water until al dante. Drain.

Take a pair of metal thongs and toss the sauce and linguine together, breaking up the fish meat.

Drizzle with olive oil and some fennel tops.

Channa Masala (Chickpea Curry)

Legumes are good for you. There are no two ways about it! This recipe for chickpea curry is healthy, delicious and economic! Legumes in general, chickpeas in particular, store extremely well for long periods of time, extremely high in protein, are relatively cheep, and if done right, absolutely delicious!

When I was growing up, we would have Channa Masala, or Chickpea Curry fairly regularly. I have to say, I wasn't a big fan. The flavor profile was good, but we would use canned chickpeas. They always tasted salted and mushy. I suppose because they were soaking in canned salted water for god knows how many weeks.

Canned Chickpeas are convenient, because you don't have to soak them, but you are really paying for that convenience. Dried chickpeas are one of the cheapest foods you can buy, and you can buy in bulk. As they store indefinitely, you just need a jar to store them in and you are golden. Personally, I just keep mine in a big ziplock bag.



For dried chickpeas, soak them in water for an hour or so. They will balloon up in size. Check this out:

The top chickpea is dried out, the bottom one has been soaking in water for an hour. Cool uh?

After you drain the water, you can keep soaked chickpeas in a fridge for a day or so.





This recipe calls for boiling the soaked chickpeas in tea for half and hour. You then reserve some of the tea (it has all the lovely flavor and nutrients of the chickpea) and add that back into the dish. I highly recommend you don't use loose tea leaves, just tea bags. It would be a pain to strain out all the individual tea leaves.


Ingredients
1 cup chickpeas
1 tea bag
6 cups water
2 tablespoons, vegetable oil
2 medium onions, diced (yellow onions preferred, white onions in a pinch)
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 green chilies, sliced (if you like it spicy, add more!)
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
3 medium tomatoes, diced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1.5 teaspoons ground cumin
.5 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons minced coriander leaves
1/4 teaspoon Garam Masala
Shredded Ginger (for garnish)



Wash and soak the chickpeas for 1 hour. Drain and discard the liquid. Add chickpeas, tea bag and water to a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for 30-45 minutes until the chickpeas are tender. Scoop out 1 cup of the tea cooking liquid and set aside. Drain the chickpeas.













Add oil to wok and heat for a few seconds. Add the onion and stir fry until golden. Add ginger and chilies, and continue to stir fry. When their aroma is released, add the garlic last and stir fry for a few seconds.
















Add the tomatoes, coriander, cumin, turmeric and red pepper and stirfry for 5-10 minutes.
















Add the chickpeas, reserved cooking liquid and salt. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Add a pinch of Garam Masala or to taste.

Garnish with Garam Masala, coriander leaves and ginger shreds.

Best with Naan or Paratha!