get in my belly!

berry jam and goat cheese, a really yummy combo

2012-01-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

lots of goodness in this photo:

the bag of sourdough crisps came from costco.

the goat cheese is regular TJ's goat chevre

the ollalieberry jam was made by my coworker. about 2-3 times a year, a few people in my company put together a "craft faire" and this lady, merriam, makes jam out of the ollalieberries and blackberries growing wild in her yard. i bought a few jars. the ollalieberry is better than blackberry in that it's less tart and has fewer seeds. but they're both very good.

goat cheese and jam spread on sourdough crisp... yum!

oven roasted eggplant

2012-01-12T22:40:00.000-08:00

cut eggplants.
salt cut eggplants.
incubate at room temp (i.e. "sweat") for about an hour.
rinse with water.
dry as much as possible. in the pictured batch below, i sandwiched the pieces between two clean kitchen towels, then pressed down.
spray/brush one side with olive oil.
sprinkle salt, pepper, and any other desired seasonings/spices.
flip and do the same for the other side.
bake in a 425F oven to desired doneness (i like mine nicely mushy and browned up).
make sure to flip at halfway point.

awesome to eat as a side dish.
extra awesome as a pizza topping.

pulled pork

2011-11-18T15:34:00.001-08:00

tried the pulled pork and beef brisket sandwich at guerrilla food truck. he's right by fist of flour pizza. i got half pork and half brisket. not too bad. i'm not a huge fan of sandwiches in general but i like supporting food truck food.

foodtrucks

2011-11-10T15:27:00.001-08:00

locally we've got cupkates which makes these wonderful wonderful cupcakes. today i got a lemon cupcake with raspberry cream. it was sublime. kind of expense at $3 per.

and i found another foodtruck. this is over near bed bath and beyond in jack london square. fist full of dough pizza for $4/slice. i had the mozzarella with arugula and it was very good. the guy made his own oven which i think is badass.

i hope there will be more food trucks!! i love it :o)

mail-order oysters

2011-11-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

i'm a huge groupon user.
and i'm also a big fan of raw oysters.

a while ago, i got a deal for 4 dozen fresh oysters delivered to my doorstep for like super-cheap.
i finally redeemed it and had it delivered last weekend. they came in a styrofoam box with a bunch of ice bags. they were also freshly picked and muddy, so i had to scrub them pretty good.

i bought myself a shucking knife ahead of time. i'd never shucked oysters before, but i figured with the proper tool, it's gonna be a breeze.

was i wrong!
shucking is serious business.
it took me 15 mins to do the first one.
the rest got progressively quicker, but it still took me an hour to shuck a dozen. i stuck the rest in the fridge coz i couldn't do any more.
the next day, i watched a few "how to shuck oysters" video on youtube.
it took me about half an hour to shuck another dozen.
stuck the rest back in the fridge.

day after that, i decided to just throw the whole lot on the grill. they all opened up within a minute on heat. i pulled all of 'em off the heat, peeled off the top shell, added a butter/lemon/parsley concoction, then grilled them all up for another 5 minutes.

i gotta say... eating them raw, these were prolly some of the BEST BEST BEST oysters i've had ever! so salty and sweet. not fishy at all. even joe (a non-fish/seafood-eater) enjoyed them.
but after i grilled the last dozen or two, i quickly realized the error of my ways. cooking them is a good way to waste good-quality oysters.

i just got a coupon from the oyster company (hood canal seafood) for repeat customers, so methinks i might buy more to give me some much-needed shucking practice.
definitely raw this time!

frozen custard

2011-10-11T17:39:00.001-07:00

this is a very important post for you if you are lactose tolerant! at addies pizza pie in berkeley across from ashby bart, they've got frozen custard. i don't know why there are so few frozen custard places on the west coast. anyway, if you've never had it before, it is really delicious. first time i had it was in hawaii at a burger place. i've been looking for frozen custard forever and am so happy to have finally found it.

mi pueblo es su pueblo

2011-10-04T14:07:00.001-07:00

just realized something. something HUGE! mi pueblo, the mexican supermarket chain, has meat that's ALREADY CUT UP! no longer will i have to spend precious time cutting up chicken. no longer will i toil over that huge hunk of beef for stir fry. the days of cleaving pork have ended. can you feel the electricity in the air?! can you feel it?!

yesterday i cooked up some pastor. it was pretty good--just something simple to eat over rice.

red chili

2011-09-28T12:57:00.001-07:00

there's a restaurant called red chili in hayward on mission right next to holiday bowl. the fare is vietnamese and thai and it's really good. a huge plus is they don't use msg so you're not super thirsty afterwards. the roti is good!