Bad Home Cooking

Drink your greens: Avocado smoothies

I've never been much of a smoothie person. The whole Jamba Juice concept strikes me as excessive - such a production to make, so much money to spend on fruit pulp with wheat germ organic oxygen shot extra. And they hand it to you in a cup the size of a small bucket. I guess at the end of the day I just want my "smoothies" to contain caffeine.

But I can be swayed. A gal who works at my local Trader Joe's saw me fondling the avocados the other day and asked if I'd ever had an avocado smoothie.

"Ewww..."

"No! They're delicious!" she said. "And so stupidly easy to make."

Well that had my name written all over it. I queried further.

"How stupidly easy, you think?"

One or two avocados, depending on how much you want, a few dates, some almond milk, and voila. Creamy, greeny goodness. Very popular in the Philippines, she said. OK, I said. Good enough for me.

I mean, think of the blog fodder...

This one had big disaster potential written all over it.

Unfortunately, all went uncharacteristically smoothly. I scooped two avocados into the blender and added four pitted dates. I pulped this up, then added plain almond milk while blending until I got a consistency I could live with.

I poured it into a glass. I sipped. I had two immediate thoughts: Wow, that's a sweet avocado shake baby; and, Wow I'm gonna be regular tonight...

I digress. I approached the Drama teen, eating soup at the table and reading a book. She scowled. Took the glass. Dipped her nose in. Handed it back to me. "No thank you," she said.

"You love guacamole," I reminded her.

"On chips," she said. "Not in cups."

The boy I know to be more adventurous. He eats avocados by the ton - spread on toast, smashed into guacamole, cut into slices and sprinkled with sea salt ("the good sea salt!"). But just to make sure he accepted this new, liquid version, I tarted it up with a shot of whipped cream on top.

The boy uttered a surprised and not-too-unpleased "ooh..." when I handed him what looked like a glass of green pudding. He ate the whipped cream. Then he got into the smoothie itself. "Wow!" he said between gulps. And with mouth rimmed in green, he asked for another.

Victory was mine.

A little research revealed that yes, in fact, these are very popular in the Philippines, only they make them differently, using condensed milk and/or sugar. Sounds yummy, but I'm gonna stick with the healthier version.

BHC Seal of Approval: Starbuck's "Via" instant coffee

In the beginning, there was Folger's crystals, the standard instant coffee if the '70s. When I was a kid, my grandmother would make it for me in her little teacups with lots of milk and sugar, and she'd show me how to cool it off by pouring it into the saucer and sipping it. It was delicious, but my mom didn't want her 10-year-old drinking coffee. We waited until she left and my grandmother, winking, would pour me another cup.

Then came high school, and the tender beginnings of the "coffee house" trend in America. My art school friends and I would drink coffee because it was so grown-up and "hip."

Then came college journalism. I became a professional coffee drinker then. After that came the actual newsroom, and, well, coffee was as much a part of my life as my keyboard and reporter's notepad.

Instant coffee fell into the background along with all the other processed foods of my childhood. I embraced the gourmet coffee thing with both arms. For about a decade. At which point I realized I really didn't enjoy strong roasts or a burnt taste or coffee so high octane it left me feeling like a meth head in the afternoon. And then there were the costs. I won't pay $4 for coffee on principal. I started going to 7-11 to get my coffee. 

It was all downhill from there. I bought a jar of Nescafe, which reminded me of travels in the Middle East. I bought various jars of instant coffee marketed to various ethnic groups: East Indians, Latinos. All good. All worthy. Instant coffee was luring me back in. 

I read all the brou-ha-ha about Starbuck's foray into instant coffees about a year ago. I didn't pay any attention, although I should, perhaps, since it's sort of my job to pay attention to these things.

Then Luke brought over a sample for me. "It's really pretty good," he told me. "For instant coffee."

I tried it one morning, when I couldn't find enough brain cells to clean my coffee maker and make a cup for myself. Boiling water is so much easier than cleaning a filter and trying to figure out how many teaspoons will make a decent cuppa.

I was surprised how good it was. No, scratch that. I was shocked. 

I say this with no love for Starbucks. I am a hateful bitch toward corporations in general. But I have to admit I think they nailed something here.

So now I'm back to my first love, instant coffee. It's not an everyday thing; but it's good to have in the house. I recently bought a 12-pack of the stuff, which comes in clever, easy-to-open one-cup tubes. An organized person would pack these with them on a business trip and save a grip of money on not having to buy hotel coffee -- or even Starbuck's at a Starbuck's.

Now that I'm back down to a cup a day, Starbuck's Via instant coffee tubes are my new favorite thing. If you're as discombobulated, and disorganized as me in the morning, and need your caffeine hit instantly, check these out. They have the Bad Home Cook Seal of Approval.

Love, Julie

Love is a bowl of pasta with butter and cheese at 1 a.m.

It's my dad's fried egg sandwiches.

It's the Toll-House cookies my mom made us growing up.

It's waffles made from scratch on Sundays. Pancakes, too.

It's the instant Folger's, more milk and sugar than coffee, my grandmother made for me as soon as my mom left the house.

It's figs, pomegranates, oysters, and all that stuff. 

It's cheap wine, stinky cheese and crusty bread.

It's an avocado shared on a hillside, halved with a pocket knife.

It's your favorite meal at your favorite Indian restaurant in your favorite city.

It's peach tea in the Boboli Gardens.

It's the Princess Toast Barbara made for her kids, her grandkids, and my kids.

It's pears in bed.

It's the bread your cousin makes for your son.

It's the soup you make for a sick friend and the meal you bring to a friend who just gave birth.

It's the honey tea you make every night for your kids. And it's every routine dish you make them every night until they grow up and move away. It's what you will make them when they come back to your kitchen.

It's the leftovers you scrape together to share with neighbors.

It's whatever you give to someone, sitting in your kitchen, hungry.

Your food is your love. Let me feed you. You in turn go feed somebody you love.

And have a happy Valentine's Day.

Photo by Aussiegal.

The experimentor: Sour soup and orange schlap slap

It was a proud day for me as the Bad Home Cook. Never mind about the mess in my kitchen. That's what I pay my cleaning lady for.

The boy spent some hours this week experimenting on a host of recipes involving pilfered citrus fruits from our neighbor's tree. He and his friend Natalia came up with two taste sensations: sour soup and a concoction he calls "Orange Schlap Slap."

His slogan for these flavor assaults? "Prepare to be soured."

If he doesn't go on to be the next celebrity chef, then at least my kid's got a future in advertising.

Here's the first recipe, written in his own hand:

Sour soup:

Two spoons of sugar

3 dabs of sugar

8 grapes (squeeze the juice into a cup)

2 lemons (squeeze the juice into a cup)

3 oranges (squeeze the juice into a cup)

Serves one.

Note: If you drink it all in one gulp, your throat will burn.

Note: To save your throat from burning, eat sugar.

Orange Schlap Slap is a variation on this soup, featuring, you guessed it, more orange.

Fortunately I wasn't bound by motherhood to venture more than a sip. 

And what do you know? A teaspoon of sugar really does make the medicine go down...

Crashed egg over roasted potatoes -- FAIL

What the hell was I thinking? Oh yes, I remember. I was thinking I could cook better than I can.

Well, it's always good to stay humble. 

See, I thought I'd discovered the secret to making perfect roasted potatoes. And last week, I set out to make them. Emboldened by a couple of strong beers, I thought, hey, why not try that outrageous tapas I had up in San Francisco for the BlogHer Food Conference. It was called "Crashed egg over roasted potatoes," and if I now could make flawless potatoes, how hard would dumping an egg over the top be?

All I was missing was the prosciutto, and I could live without it. I'd already been to Trader's twice that day, (possibly a third time, it's all a blur) and on principal I refused to go back. So no prosciutto. If memory served, proper seasoning would suffice.

So I chopped up my Yukon B's into bite-sized chunks. The "secret" called for par-boiling for five minutes first, before roasting.

Bad Home Cooking tip: Don't go on Facebook when par-boiling anything.In fact, just turn the damn computer off when cooking, OK? I'm talking to myself, but you might as well listen in since you're here. It's slowly dawning on me that I can't imbibe, listen to music, parent or even converse while cooking if I hope to make something come out according to plan.

The potatoes, in small bite-sized chunks, were now only a few minutes from being cooked through. This meant that after I did "the shake," to rough them up a bit in preparation for the perfect roasted crust, I was left with half-mashed potatoes instead.

No matter! So what? I forged ahead. While they were cooking I was left to ponder: what exactly does "crashed egg" mean anyhow? I had assumed it was some quaint Spanish mis-translation of fried egg, but maybe not?  Maybe I was supposed to poach it? Or maybe the heat of the potatoes would sort of cook it if you "crashed" it on top of them just out of the oven. It was a mystery indeed. This might be a problem.

The roasted potatoes came out more like hashed browns, not the golden-brown triangles you see in the photo above. I put some on two plates and tried a fried egg on one. Meh. I tried my "crashed" egg theory on the other. Oh dear. That wasn't it, either.

In fact, the results were so poor I couldn't even get a decent picture. The photo above is what the fine professionals at the Tapas place made. Maybe I should have asked some questions before I left.

But in a last-minute save of sorts, a girlfriend came over later that night and began picking at the pan. "Your roast potatoes are delicious," she said. Finish them off, I told her. Please. And enjoy. And she did. And that made me feel a little better.

For next time: Turn off all distracting media, hide the alcohol and give this a redo. Seriously, how hard can it be really? It's potatoes and eggs, for God's sake.

At least you can all bask in the knowledge that I will never cook as well as you do.

Stay tuned.

French Tip: Clotilde's secret to perfect roast potatoes

Ah-HA!

Finally, the secret to perfect roasted potatoes. Courtesy of Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini. 

 I'm gonna try this.

And we'll see how fool-proof it is. I have high hopes. But I'm not holding my breath either. Stay tuned...

Going Rogue: Stir-fry style

The rain slammed down on the tin patio roof as I stared bleakly into the refrigerator at 4:30. Another dinner time, another blank slate. Even though the weather called for soup, my eye caught the soy sauce, which suggested stir-fry. Not what you think of for stormy weather fare, but it could work.

Besides, I had almost everything on hand -- carrots, celery, soy sauce, ginger, sticky rice. All I needed was tofu and maybe some snow peas, if I could find them. If Trader Joe's wasn't flooded (like most of the streets in my town were at the moment), I could procure and make it happen.

I was only half soaked upon getting there, and feeling like a damp rug I was pointed in the direction of the tofu. "What kind should I get," I asked one of the workers there, who I knew to be vegetarian. "What are you making?" he asked. Stir-fry, I told him. "Do you have a recipe you like for that?"

He regarded me pityingly. "No," he said finally. "It's stir-fry. You don't need a recipe for stir-fry."

Maybe most people don't. Obviously no one there has read this blog. (when in fact it should be sponsored by TJ's, given the amount of time and money I spend there.)

Upping the pressure considerably was the fact that Debbie was coming over for dinner. She's not picky when it comes to food, but it does have to be at least partially edible. In an attempt to accommodate, I put off drinking until I'd started my summit attempt. This would be my stir-fry without a map. Going rogue with the stir-fry.

You laugh, perhaps. But if you know me and my history of disastrous forays into un-recipe'd territory, you wouldn't laugh long.

With Debbie coaching me, I cut the carrots and celery into medium dice. Diced the fresh ginger. Sliced my block of extra firm tofu into cubes (more or less) and soaked them in a marinade of my own design -- soy sauce, rice vinegar and a little sesame oil.

I made the rice, then threw the veggies into the pan to saute.

"Shall I put a little sesame oil in this?" I asked Debbie.

"Yes, but not too much or it will overwhelm everything else."

So I opened the cap and doused. I thought there would be a little spout that held back the liquid. There was not.

Chug, chug ...oh, crap...

Debbie rolled her eyes. "Do you do this on purpose, Jules?"

But as it turns out, the flavors were not overwhelmed by the sesame oil. If anything, the tofu must have sponged it up. Because the end result was fresh-tasting and zesty. Even the nits ate their bowl. Debbie and I had two bowls each.

We celebrated by opening the two-buck Chuck. 

This minor miracle, followed by the Rosemary red beet soup with miso that I made for the Soup Swap today, which turned out so good people fell on it, heartens me greatly.

Tonight I'm trying a seared sashimi-grade Ahi. With just a drop of sesame oil for flavor. (thanks for the idea, Liz) Stay tuned...

Time to swap some soup again

It's not exactly soup weather in Southern California, but when did we ever let weather stop us from anything?

It's Soup Swap time again.

I've hosted two soup swaps at my house over the past few years, the first small and informal, the second too big to handle (for me). This year I'm doing my part in a slightly different way: I'm joining a team and swapping with five other teams for fun and prizes at the Sunday Long Beach Farmer's Market. Kelli organized this one, of course. She's good like that.

What to make? A brief pow-wow with teammate Audge brought up the idea of colors. Red soups, green soups, yellow soups.

Which makes me think of my infamous rosemary red soup with alien heads. A great, deep red color, provided you use the correct color of beet.

And something orange. With carrots. There's a bounty of carrots out there right now. Best to help use them up.

Let's see what happens. Stay tuned...

Prime directive: A tortilla Espanola in memory of Ben Bradley

People who love to cook for others leave behind a taste, a signature dish they were known for. Everyone in the flamenco community in Los Angeles knew Ben Bradley made a wicked tortilla Espanola.

Ben was a director and producer and all-around go-to guy at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, an intimate venue well-known for its award-winning plays and the long-running Forever Flamenco series.

When you love the theater, you accept that you will be overworked and underpaid. Dealing with politics and egos goes along with the job. Somehow you navigate the chaos and manage to commit art you hope will resonate anyway. This was Ben's life work.

His talents didn't go unnoticed. His direction in 2006 of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” earned him Ovation awards for best direction and best production. His 2008 staging of Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” earned best director and best production honors from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. His production of Yellow Man, by Dael Orlandersmith, was so powerful I ran out and bought the script the next day, something I'd never done before or since.

In his role of audience development, he was unparalleled. Nobody could fill a theater like Ben.

Ben was kind, resourceful and committed. And at the end of every show he had a hand in, Ben would feed everyone. He insisted on it. Imagine being greeted by plates of warm, delicious food made just for you after a tough performance. It was like coming home. Ben thought of his players and audiences as his family. Only right that he should feed them.

He was that last man anyone expected to be taken from us so barbarically. 

In his honor and memory, I made a tortilla. Two potatoes, an onion, five eggs, some Italian parsley, salt and pepper. It's not hard to make (although it took me many tries to learn how), but it's warm and delicious. Comfort food of the first order. 

This one came out well. But not as good as Ben's. Never as good as Ben's. 

In memory of Bennett Bradley.

Good luck with that: Japanese New Year's soup

 
Every year on New Year's Day the Tanaka's open up their home for friends and family. On offer are all manner of Japanese and American deliciousness. There is cold beer (Mexican) and vino (Chilean). It's an event not to be missed. Especially if you're too hung over to cook for yourself. (which, in full disclosure, I wasn't, but why cook when somebody else is doing it for me?)

But the big event is the chance to eat George's special "Good Luck" New Year's soup. As people mingle and sip and nosh, George hunches over his big pot of soup, It's slow going: he has to grill a mochi, then cook it in the broth carefully before slipping it into the bowl, along with sliced carrots, a hard-boiled egg, chopped chicken and some kind of seaweed. Only when he's carefully assembled all this will he bring you your bowl.

And everyone who enters wants a bowl. Everyone agrees that 2009 was not a great year. Everyone hopes 2010 has to be an improvement. And everyone believes that every little bit helps, even if it's a soup.

So I asked George this year to explain to me the significance of this Good Luck soup. 

"Oh, there's great significance," he tells me gravely.

"Go on..." I say, hoping for some ancient Japanese wisdom, or at least a rare family recipe.

"Well, for example, there's chicken in the soup, see it? And there's half a boiled egg. These symbolize life. Mother and daughter."

"Really!"

"And the mushroom? That symbolizes the earth. And so hard work..."

"huh..."

"And the carrots....they symbolize....um, good vision. Like, so you can see the bigger picture..."

"Wait a minute..."

"The mochi really does have something to do with the New Year, but I don't know what."

"Is he making this up?" I peer at Dr. Ash, standing next to him, who starts laughing first. Usually the English can keep a straight face longer than anyone.

So there's no old family recipe or any particular significance behind this soup, I say. It's all hype. 

Well, not entirely. There is a Japanese soup they eat on New Year's, says George. And the dashi base is culturally accurate. "And I added the Shitake mushroom this year," he said helpfully. "But I think maybe it's too big."

I could only eat half my bowl of Good Luck soup. I had already filled up on Okonomi-yaki, which is a popular dish in Osaka, and frankly, one bite of the dense, chewy mochi dumpling in the soup topped me off for good.

George offered to take my bowl. "It was delicious," I told him. "Sorry I couldn't eat all of it."

"Half-eaten Good Luck soup means you'll have the most luck," he said, grinning. "People who eat all of it usually have bad luck. So you're good."

I'm gonna take him on his word on that on.

Happy 2010, faithful readers!