Coffee. Thank God for coffee!

Herein lies a cup of love. Liquid warmth & energy that is the fuel that wakes up the eyeballs & softens the hard edges of the morning. I don't mess around when it comes to coffee. It's gotta be real coffee, not that junk in a can. Although I do have a can of "emergency" coffee, because on those terrible, terrible mornings when you wake up & realize you forgot to get more freakin coffee, as if there's anything more important, emergency coffee is better than no coffee, if only by a small margin. I have a tiny little KRUPP'S espresso maker that I got for $30 bucks at Walmart. It makes one coffee at a time; thick, strong coffee and then it turns milk unto something, dare I say...sexy? Yeah, sexy. I need a sexy coffee first thing in the morning.

I'm almost always looking down the barrel of my favorite coffee cup, which is the sole survivor of a set of four. It's chipped & cracked & It's days are numbered, but unless it's been forgotten in the garden after yesterday's coffee ritual, or buried in a sink full of dishes, it's the only one that will do. It is my soul mate of a coffee cup. Freakish, I know.

It's not only about the coffee, the sexy foam or my favorite coffee cup, it's also about creating the blissfull, comfy, renewing atmosphere in the pocket of the day in which to suck it down. Sometimes I can stomach watching the morning news over my cup of Jo, but usually being bombarded by murder, scandal, natural disasters & human disasters before having my peaceful coffee moment makes me squirmy. Not to mention trying to savor my moment while Spongebob is blaring in the background, don't get me started.

When I first moved into my house, I didn't have cable TV. Sigh..... This meant coffee-time in bed, or in the quiet sunlight on the couch... But things have changed. Now, I have finally created my little haven outside in my garden. Since I have recently gotten back on the watering-the-garden-bandwagon, I have figured out that if I drag my coffee down to my haven, it forces me to water and then I can sit on the bench, kick my feet up on the table and have my peaceful moment. Then & only then can I face the day's scandal & natural disasters that I will undoubtedly encounter.

Citrus Granita

In Hawaii, we have shave ice, which is usually flavored with crazy, (delicious) artificially flavored syrup. The other day I made this granita, or shave ice with my kids and it was the perfect cool, summer treat. Plus, me being me, I quickly realized that if you pour a little citrus vodka over the top, it turns it into a lovely grown up treat!

Put your cookie sheet in the freezer while you make the liquid to help the freezing process.

4-5 large lemons, oranges etc... or enough to get about 2 cups of juice

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

Cut a couple long strips of rind from the citrus, making sure to not include any of the white pith.

Cut citrus in half & juice them.

In a medium saucepan, combine the water and sugar. Bring to a boil.

Lower heat to simmer, add the lemon juice, and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Add the lemon strips and allow to cool to room temperature.

When cool, strain through a fine-mesh strainer.

Transfer the mixture to the cookie sheet & put back in the freezer.

About every half hour, scrape the mixture with a fork to make ice crystals. Continue until it's frozen to your liking. Serve in a swanky glass.

I'm happy to have this basic recipe to be able to do some improv with! Imagine this with watermelon, peach juice, or even espresso!

"Go outside & play!"

Once again, I have realized that I have become my mother. It's summer, my kids are on break, and I find myself constantly shooing them outside. We argue back & forth, I say things like, "because I said so", or "Yes, there ARE things to do", and my favorite: "No I am NOT being unreasonable!" We live in Hawaii, for crying out loud (there's my mother again!), why is it such a chore to go play outside?!

Well, at least I have figured out that I can make them eat outside. I'm like the Pied Piper, I carry the food outside and they follow. And then something pretty cool happens. A bowl of summer cherries turns into a ruckus, funny contest to see who can spit more seeds into the bowl. When I sneak back inside to finish dinner, they slowly trickle back in & attempt to turn on the T.V. & provide me more opportunities to say those motherly "Don't-make-me...." warnings.

But then when we gather around the outside table for dinner, the chatter turns to having a bonfire & making s'mores, which we do as the sun sets, the stars come out and we settle around the fire pit talking about our favorite memories.

Later that night, my hair still smelling of smoke, I find myself in a moment of gratitude for the things of summer; a sweet bowl of cherries, gooey s'mores, the silly sweetness of my kid's faces in the firelight, and the wise words of my mother shooing us all outside to breathe in the summer air.

B.J.'s Baked Beans

Twenty-six years ago today, my parents opened their restaurant called B.J.'s BBQ & Deli. They sold it & retired 10 years ago, but it remains the backdrop for much of my childhood as well as the breeding ground for my love of food. When the restaurant opened, my mom's goal was that "B.J's would become a household name". And that it did. We lived in a small community in Northern California & B.J's went from a tiny take out BBQ place to a slightly expanded restaurant that seated 55 and would serve up to 300 dinners on a Friday or Saturday night.

The menu consisted of deli sandwiches, bbq ribs, chicken & prime rib, deli salads, corn on the cob, and my mom's famous baked beans. Every few days she would bring to life a huge vat of beans which would slowly sit cooking for an entire day. There was a lot of love & time poured into these beans.

So this year some internal clock went off inside of me. A few days ago, I dragged out my mom's recipe for baked beans, which I had never made myself before, and began my adventure of de-coding a restaurant portion recipe into one that would fit onto my stove. The process takes ALL day, but is about a million, billion times better than anything you will find in a can. Just the smell of them cooking on the stove sent me straight back to the many, many days I spent in my parents restaurant.

Ingredients:

2 C. Great Northern Beans (1 small bag)

1 C. BBQ sauce

1/8 C. cider vinegar

1 Tbs. mustard

1-2 Tbs. Worcestershire Sauce

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 C. thick sliced ham, cubed

1 Polish sausage, cubed

1 Tbs. Kitchen Bouquet (if this is not something you use, you find it in the condiment section at the store - it's great for adding a dark, rich color & flavor to sauces & gravy)

1 tsp. salt

1 C. brown sugar

What you do:

Rinse beans & put into large stock pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Turn off and let sit for 1 1/2 hours. Dump out water, and refill with fresh water, then turn back on a and simmer until tender, about an hour & 1/2 more, until tender. Make sure there is enough water remaining to cover the beans. Then add Kitchen Bouquet & salt and continue to cook for another 1/2 hour.

Meanwhile, saute onion, ham & sausage until slightly browned. Pour in 1/4 C. of water to deglaze pan and then add remaining ingredients except brown sugar, and simmer in a small saucepan until beans have cooked for 1/2 an hour.

Add sauce mixture to beans and cook for at least one hour, stirring often.

Add brown sugar and cook another hour. By then you will have tender, sweet, tangy beans that will be the star of your BBQ. These are great if you make them the day before you plan on serving them, and let them hang out in the fridge overnight. They are great hot or cold.

Last night, on the 4th of July, as I found myself hunched over a plate of BBQ spare ribs, fresh corn on the cob, and my mom's baked beans, I realized I had subconsciously re-created an exact replica of what would be served at B.J's. And now that I read these words, I see my mom's dream of having B.J.'s being a household name has lived on all these years later.

I hope you will try these and I hope that they will continue to live on in infamy in your family.

Happy Independence Day!

Pita Bread

So the other night I decided to revisit the falafel recipe (October '09) - and for those of you who thought making them seemed too ambitious, you really must try it. I promise it's no harder than making meatballs!

Anyway, I also decided that pita bread shouldn't be so hard to make, given my recently gained bread making confidence. So I went for the first recipe I found, mixed the ingredients, then finished reading the recipe, where it said to let the dough rise for THREE hours! It was already like 7:00, so I disobeyed, let it rise an hour and voila! Homemade pita bread!

And let me say this. As with most things, homemade is SO much better. They were soft & still warm from the oven when we stuffed them with the falafel, veggies & yogurt/cucumber dressing. Killer, killer, killer. Please give this a try, you will impress yourself with your skills!

Ingredients:

* 1/2 Tbs yeast

* 1 1/2 cup warm water (120-130 degrees)

* 3 cups all purpose flour (I used bread flour)

* 1 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon sugar

Preparation:

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy.

Combine flour and salt in large bowl.

Add the yeast-water and stir with wooden spoon until combined.

Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic.

Coat a large bowl with olive oil and put dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated.

Allow to sit in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until it has doubled in size. (Since I was trying to rush this part along, I turned on the oven to about 200, then turned it off after about 5 minutes. Then I put the bowl of dough in the oven to rise.)

Once doubled, roll out in a rope, and pinch off 10-12 small pieces and shape into balls. Let them sit covered for 10 minutes to rise. Preheat oven to 500 deg F. and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Be sure to also preheat your baking sheets. I think this scorching heat is the secret to getting that cool pocket in the bread. Not sure what magical thing happens in there, but it works.

Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick.

Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes.

Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking.

And there you have it!

Brasserie Du Vin

There are times when the sea calls me. Not with the need for me to be in it, but more so the need for it to be in me.

And when this call comes, it comes in the form of oysters.

I was one of the strange kids who would eat anything - except liver - especially if it would make my mom cringe. And oysters definitely make my mom cringe. But to me as a kid, it was almost like an adventure to eat something so ugly & slimy & strange. I didn't even taste it, really - I just went for it in the name of adventure.

But now, many years later, I have come to appreciate these mysterious creatures. The cool, taste of the sea makes them the perfect summer treat.

Which brings me to my point of introducing you, dear reader, to my favorite place to have dinner with a girlfriend, an early evening drink, a Saturday lunch or even a birthday bash. All of which I have had at

Brasserie Du Vin, in downtown Honolulu.

Du Vin is a brasserie & wine bar, which opened two doors down from my photography studio in 2006. My culinary prayers had been answered. Since then, owners Dave & Mari Stewart have become great friends of mine and the Mediterranean, rustic feel of this cafe has made it my favorite little spot.

Most of the food served at Du Vin is almost tapas style - small plates of salads, breads, cheeses, & olives meant to be shared. There is also a great selection of daily specials as the well as the regulars on the menu, my favorites by far being the mussels in garlic, butter & white wine & the pork chop, which never fails to knock my socks off, if you will.

And then there's the oysters...

New Zealand oysters are served on the half shell with a bit of cocktail sauce & lemon. Order up a glass of chilled Famega (the only white wine that you will find me talking about), and sit back and savor all that these strange little creatures have to offer.

The next time you are in the neighborhood, you must make a stop at Brasserie Du Vin, located 1115 Bethel street. Chances are you will find me there sipping a glass of wine, chatting with friends & hopefully full of oysters...

Bloody Mary

I never used to be a fan of this beverage. Then one day, as I was working at my studio, a girlfriend of mine came in & said, "come have a bloody mary with me". Now, if you know me, you know that it didn't take much to convince me.

It's almost like drinking cold, spicy soup. Plus, it's a beverage widely accepted as a breakfast cocktail, and you gotta love that.

I got a hankering for one recently and found a great recipe for a homemade mix which contains things you probably already have the condiment department of your fridge.

I have discovered this is a great addition to my cocktail department and when you have it on hand, you can whip one up in a blink.

Ingredients

3 cups tomato juice

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

1 teaspoon minced garlic

3/4 teaspoon hot sauce, I think it needs a bit more, but that's just me

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Vodka

Directions

In a blender combine the tomato juice, lemon juice, lime juice, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and hot sauce and process until smooth. Transfer to a glass jar and add some salt and pepper. When ready to serve, fill a shaker with ice. Add 1 ounce of vodka, then pour in the bloody mary mix. Shake well. Pour into glass and garnish with something vegetable-y.

After you've made your beverage, refrigerate the jar of mix until next time.

Cheers to a spicy breakfast cocktail!

Just a potato, really

Ok, call me a lazy blogger. Or call me a blogger with only booze recipes up her sleeve. Or call me a girl who just needs a baked potato to make her happy. Ok, that's not ALL I need, but it certainly makes me happy.

I mean, in a perfect world, this one would have included bacon & maybe some cheddar cheese - you know, low fat. However, this is what I had on hand when I got home from my son's 5th grade graduation ceremony this morning - how am I old enough to have a middle school kid, I know?! But I digress.

Baked potatoes. A perfect thing, if you ask me. And that's all I really wanted to say. From fridge to mouth, this monster potato was ready in about 11 minutes. All I dirtied was a plate & a fork to make it. And when I scooped around the fluffy potato mixed with no small amount of butter, sour cream & a chive snipped from the garden, I'm tellin' you, it made me happy. That's all I wanted to say.

Infused Vodka

Alright, back to booze. Some friends of mine recently introduced me to Hendrick's Gin, which is infused with cucumber & rose petals. Fancy, I know. I'm not a big fan of Gin though, I think it tastes like pine needles, and that's just not my thing. However, my friends made a cocktail with this infused gin & a ginger beer or really good ginger ale , and let me tell you, it rocked! The thing is, it's a pretty spendy spirit, AND I'm still not a big gin lover.

SO, I decided to come up with a few of my own infused concoctions, using good ol' vodka instead. My kitchen looked like a mad science laboratory yesterday, but the result is a few fantastically strange looking jars of snazzy vodka for all my cocktail desires! And it's so easy, you've gotta do it.

The first one, pictured above, is my ode to Hendricks. I put in the cucumber & rose petals, then I went a little crazy & added a hunk of ginger, a few peach slices, lemon zest, some mint & lemon verbena. Muah ha ha haaa! The crazy cocktail scientist is a genius!
This one is a citrus vodka. A bunch of lemon peels (make sure you cut it so there's no white pith left on the slices) and a jar of vodka, how much easier could it be?? I'm going to leave these in the fridge for a few days - I'm sure that's all I can wait - and let them do their thing, and then it's fancy pants cocktail time!

Give these a try or let me know what whacky combinations you come up with! I look forward to adding to my collection of mystery alcohol!

Cheers!!!

Grilled Heart of Palm Salad

I realized today that an alternate name for this blog could be "Carbs & Booze". It's got a ring to it! But really, I do feed my people vegetables! So I thought I better prove it to you by showing you this fabulous salad that will accompany our chicken tacos tonight.

I got this huge piece of fresh heart of palm last week at the farmer's market. I have never dealt with it in this state, every time I have had it, it's come out of a can. I grilled an ear of corn for this salad, so afterward I threw some slices of the fresh heart of palm onto the grill pan. (It's cut into tri-angles in the salad, if you're trying to identify it). I sliced the rest into long sticks, boiled it with some salt and then added a little sugar & vinegar, put it in a jar and sealed it for later.
But for now, here's some foliage that will accompany my carbs & booze for dinner!