The Bread Project - Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

I was itching to make a loaf of my mom's cranberry nut bread yesterday (I'd only made and devoured two loaves over the holidays, which just won't cut it), but alas Safeway had no fresh cranberries on hand (that stupid grocery store regularly lets me down, which is perhaps why it's parking lot is strangely the site of the majority of Daniel's and my tiffs - we are not this couple.)

Anyway, I wanted to make a quick bread and had thought that I might return to the comforting King Arthur Oatmeal Applesauce Bread that I made a while back. But then I came across a recipe for a similar quick bread based on a Dorrie Greenspan goodie on the blog Eggs on Sunday. It had the divine Dorrie and a streusel topping in its favor, so I decided to give it a go.

I made a few alterations to it, and it came out a little dryer than I might have liked, but still it's a nice, satisfying quick bread. It satiated both my need to bake and Daniel's rumbling stomach. Plus, I think it will make yummy toast. And I love toast.

Oatmeal Breakfast Bread
Adapted from Dorrie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, by way of Eggs on Sunday

Ingredients

For the streusel:
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I used a bit less)
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

For the bread:
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
1 cup old-fashioned oats

Directions

1)Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan, and tap out the excess flour.

2) In a small bowl, use your fingers to toss together the streusel topping ingredients (brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon.) Set aside.

3) In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, applesauce, oil and yogurt until they’re well blended.

4) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir in the oats.

5) Pour the liquid ingredients over the flour mixture in the large bowl, and fold until they’re combined (do not overmix.)

6) Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Scatter the streusel over the top, and lightly press it onto the surface of the batter with your fingers. Bake for 55 minutes.

7) Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes before placing on rack to cool completely. Wrap tightly and store.

Satiety thy name is tasting menu

Yes, it's been too long since I last posted. There has been many a delicious meal. There has been baking (pumpkin cake, cranberry nut bread, even macarons.) There has been the incorporation of a candy thermometer into the rotation of kitchen tools. This is serious business. But if I think of any of that for too long at this moment I may explode. Literally, my stomach may erupt.

I am writing in this moment merely to document a feeling that I am usually too exhausted or tipsy or just plain satiated to note when it happens, but which is a really remarkable feeling - that time after eating an astonishingly large meal, where your belly is expanded with a post-term food baby, your intestines throb, and your mind whirls with dizzying thoughts of the food ingested. It's a rare feeling and one that while it should be kept at a minimum is one to be savored. Being full is a privilege and not to be taken for granted. And while I am in no way wealthy, as I enter into this new year, I realize how lucky I am, and my full belly reminds me of it.

So, although it seems unfathomable now, I know that tomorrow I will be hungry again - and probably more than usual since my stomach is now so stretched. And I hope that as I go back and remember the eight plus courses (oh that risotto with pork and braised red cabbage, oh that oxtail consomme, oh my goodness that absurdly rich creamy cheese from Burgundy whose name I can't remember, oh Lord that foie gras), I hope that I will also remember this feeling of fullness, that slight whiff of guilt, and that ultimate feeling of absolute luckiness that I got to enjoy such a decadent meal.

Impulse Buy(s) - a mini-road trip to San Jose

Last Saturday, to help ease me back into California living, Daniel humored me with a trip down 280 to sample some of what San Jose has to offer. We didn't have much of an agenda, so with only iPhone Google Maps to guide us, we stumbled on to some tasty finds. Here's the day in pictures:

Our first stop was Mi Pueblo Food Center, which from online reviews sounded like an open-air market, but was in reality a big grocery store, specializing in Mexican, Central American, and South American products.

A pretty yummy chicken tamale. The chicken was a little dry, but nicely flavored

We bought a container of salsa. Although the man at the counter assured us it was the spiciest, it wasn't that hot, but it had a nice, smokey flavor to it.

Some chipotle hot sauce. Because we currently have approximately twelve open bottles of hot sauce in the fridge, I have restrained myself from breaking into this. Not sure how much longer I can resist.

Next, we headed over to Little Saigon, or so it was known before the great San Jose naming controversy of 2007. No matter what you call it, this area is known for its sizable Vietnamese population, which is apparently the largest outside of Vietnam.

First we hit the grocery store, where of course we were forced to make a couple of impulse buys...

A fried onion paste, which is INCREDIBLY salty, but has already added some powerful oniony flavor to the savory casserole bread I made on Sunday.

Mackerel in tom yum sauce. Yet to try it, but I love small, canned fish.

I also love small, packaged, fried fish. Anchovies with sesame seeds! I really am kind of in love with these. Daniel bravely tasted them but wasn't sold. I think I'll sneak some into a salad and see what happens...

Here's what we didn't buy...

In fact just one look at this can of slimy, preserved bananas was enough to get my gag reflex going. Ick. Here's a close up.

Double ick.

From there we went walked down the shopping center concourse to a little take-out joint specializing in meat substitutes. As we know, no one does meat substitutes like the Asians.

I'm honestly not sure what is in this cup. We couldn't decide what to order, so the nice woman behind the counter made us a mix of gluten-based goodness. The resulting sampler was very chewy, a little sweet, and when topped with loads of sriracha, very yummy. While we would have naturally erred toward large amounts of our favorite hot red condiment, we did so with even greater abandon on the recommendation of a kind older gentleman who was himself enjoying a Styrofoam cup of mixed gluten.

This is ban boc lac chay. Very gelatinous rice gluten (I think) wrapped around little bits of tofu.

Finally, we headed over to the indoor shopping mall across the street, which seemed to specialize in jewelry shops and Vietnamese appetizing stores, where we purchased two baggies of beef jerky. One hot and spicy for Daniel and one fruit cured for me (in honor of the delicious fruit cured pork jerky that my Nina introduced me to.)

While there was a big food court, nicely appointed for the holidays, we decided to forgo it.

I was craving a salad, and since I had yet to capture the obligatory "Daniel eating a sandwich in the car" photo, that needed to be remedied...

And so, with banh mi in hand, we journeyed back north to SF to catch up on Mad Men.

Fast Food - Num Pang

I'm about to write something that may make me lose my license as a lover of the city life (and it's not that I haven't been paying my rent, despite the scary chalk drawing above).

Sometimes, I really resent brunch, which is not a popular opinion being that this weekly or for some bi-weekly late-morning festival of gluttony is among the most important rituals of city living.

That's not to say that I don't like the food. I love eggs. I love potatoes. I love breakfast meats. And every now and then I even pancakes. I also love that it makes eating lunch food before 1 PM not seem strange. However, eating a big meal at 11 AM always throws off my eating for the rest of the day. I get hungry again at about 5 PM, which confuses me. Should I eat a snack? Hold out for dinner? Eat an early dinner (dunch?) I'm in a tailspin.

But every now and then it leads to serendipitous experiences, as was the case last Sunday, when Daniel and I found ourselves in need of a snack while wandering around the East Village at around 4:30. Should we eat? Hold off for dinner? What to do? I did a quick mental rundown of places in the area that I'd wanted to try, casual enough that we could get something small and tasty enough to be worth our time - and then it hit me - Num Pang, the Cambodian-style bahn mi joint on 12th Street. And we were off...

It's a very hipster little shop, with kitschy chalk-style drawings (see above) in the upstairs sitting area, which also proudly overlooks a parking garage - huge (though slightly grimy) picture windows give you a full view of people validating their parking passes below.

You have to order and pay outside though, which would be frustrating on a cold, rainy day, but would also make it a very speedy take-out option, especially at more prime time eating hours.

The menu of sandwiches, all served banh mi style on French bread with pickles and herbs and mayo, was overwhelming. Each one sounded amazing - from the roasted cauliflower with Chinese and Thai eggplant spread to the grilled king mackerel with leeks to the lemongrass chicken liver pate. They even had a veal meatball sandwich, which was thrilling because Daniel never gets to eat Asian meatballs due the ever present porcine effect.

In the end though, we went for one of the specials - a ginger braised brisket with all the trimmings - pickles, cilantro, carrots, and mayo.


This was some good sandwich. The bread had the perfect French crackle, made even more satisfying with a nice toasting. And oh that brisket - this was meat that you could serve at a Seder with pride - incredibly tender with the perfect sweet, sour, savory blend that so well befits brisket. The cilantro/carrot/pickle mix added the more traditional South East Asian sandwich flavor really hold there own with the richness of the beef and all in all it made mouths happy...



I was less thrilled with the side of market pickles that we ordered. It was a nice idea - a mix of watermelon rind, rhubarb, celery root, and turnip - but the pickles had no snap to them, neither in taste nor in texture. They were flaccid and overly sweet.


Still though, the sandwich split between two made for a perfect late afternoon snack. One recommendation for future outings to Num Pang - either eat upstairs and enjoy the surly chalk drawings and happy parkers below, or take your food to another stationary location, because while the sandwich holds together nicely, it is a messy beast. We left no napkin in our wake -

Impulse buy - A little bit of Liddabit

I have a (reasonable) amount of self-control both regarding buying and snacking. I try not to buy things that I don't need and I try to not to eat when I'm not hungry. However, once I end up inside an interesting food store, I am the queen of the impulse buy - interesting looking pastry at the counter of a coffee shop? I've got to try it. Crazy sounding vegan jerky at the register of a bodega? I want a sample. Beautiful looking fruit jel candy at Green Grape Provisions? Whom am I kidding?

So when heading home from Fort Greene this evening, I was tempted into buying a Concord Grape fruit jel made by Liddabit Sweets, a small New York-based candy company.

There were many delicious looking Liddabit items at Green Grape, including a pecan pie candy bar, which looked delicious and a candy bar called "the king," which was so intriguing that I almost bought it. Thank goodness, something prevented me, because when I looked it up upon returning home, I learned that it has banana ganache. Bleh. Bananas. The horrors. (In another banana incident today, I got into one of those awkward back and forth shuffles today with a woman on the subway platform. You know the type, when you're walking toward each other and where you can't decide who's going to go one way and who's going to go the other? Awkward, but not terrifying, unless your urban dance partner is holding a half eaten banana. Then it really is a grave situation because you just don't want to get too close...)

Anyway...



I descended into the subway at Lafayette street, and took a nibble.




It was very sweet (it was concord grape afterall), but it had a pleasantly firm, chewy texture, with just enough jello-y give, and the after taste was really nice and - a really fresh grape flavor. I would definitely have a liddabit more

Three of my favorite things

From my visit to the San Francisco last weekend - three of my favorite things in one place.

1. A turkey sandwich (from the yummy deli on Guerrero and 19th Street)
2. Our ScionXB Otis (looking a little worse for the wear in my absence, I must say)
3. Daniel (today's birthday boy)

Hopefully this marks a return to your regular Food on the Frontal Lobe reports. Sorry for the recent dearth.

What you need the next time you're making sushi for Rainbow Brite

It's been far too long since I've done regular posts. I've got an iPhone full of pictures that I'm dying to blog about, but by the end of the days recently, I've been a bit too pooped to post. Which is why I'm only now getting up this recap of the New York Mutual Trading Company Japanese Food and Restaurant Show that I attended a couple of weeks ago.

The show was fun; full of lots of restaurateurs checking out high tech rice cookers and plastic sushi trays and hundred dollar wasabi graters made of shark skin. I especially loved learning about all of the different kinds of knives - for fish, for sashimi, for veggies, etc. What I loved even more, however, was the food booths. A mix of the sublime (the richest, most umami miso ever) to the silly (you'll have to wait for the end of the post for the aforementioned Rainbow Brite sushi accessory.) Here were some of my favorite things:

Every kind of Tsukemono (Japanese pickle) you can imagine

A vegan sushi made of tofu, sesame, and loads of mayo (there was also a wasabi version which I liked better)

This was the miso stand. I've been all about fermentation recently, and miso goes through one of the most fascinating fermentation processes in the world. Soybeans ferment in enormous wooden casks topped with piles of stones for up to 30 months.

These mochi were so rich and delicious that the man handing them out had to cut them in quarters lest eager samplers devour all of his wares. I especially loved the mango.

This sucker was just for show, and I arrived too late to this booth to sample his buddies.

Joseph and his roe of many colors.

Shrimp ironed into sheets, used to wrap sushi. Twas not my thing.

Shrooms

Fake sample shrooms

And finally, day-glo nori for the Rainbow Brite roll. The orange kind looks like American cheese.