Hello Readers!

I just wanted to let you all know about an upcoming event. During the week of April 20-24, I will be participating in United Way’s Hunger Action Week. In an effort to raise awareness about hunger issues in Washington, they have challenged local food bloggers to limit their weekly food budget to that of people receiving food stamps. I will be writing every day to share my experiences and also my menus. We’ve been commissioned to prove what we can do with very little money (as in…what can you buy besides Top Ramen?).

The maximum daily budget for a single person is $7, but it is significantly less for families with more people. My family of 5 would only receive $26 per day (that’s $5.20 per person). So I will be attempting to provide nutritious meals 3 times a day, for 5 full days, while spending only $110. The rules stipulate that I can not use anything from my pantry and I can not accept any free food from friends or relatives.

Join with me to experience this project!

When we got wind of Taste Washington!, we immediately submitted our proposal to FoodBuzz. This was an event worth covering. I printed out the map of vendors including wineries, restaurants, services, and some crafts. Thinking that I might receive a limited number of food passes, I charted out a course to hit the food stalls with the most interesting menus (they were conveniently preprinted on the vendor list!).

Seeing as how this was a “Washington” event, there was quite a bit of seafood listed…lots of smoked salmon dishes, chowders, grilled pieces of fish, even an oyster bar hosted by Elliott’s Oyster House.

And a fair share of beef (Washington Beef was a sponsor). A coffee bar and a dessert bar, my oh my. It was going to be tough to choose.

But, Taste Washington! was so much better than the last convention…there were no food limits! One could try everything. And not only that…the sun came out and Seattleites were very happy. We didn’t even mind standing in the very long entrance line. Thankfully, there was a media entrance with no line at all.

The convention center was decorated with many many wine barrels and had a good amount of tall tables set up around the place.

The ambiance was dark, the people well-dressed.

I was excited to meet the vendors at Fare Start, an organization that provides job training and placement for homeless and disadvantaged individuals. They’ve been around for more than 16 years helping more than 2,000 people transform their lives and also serving millions of meals to those in need. One great way to support them is to eat at the Fare Start Restaurant located on 7th and Virginia in Seattle.

And I did my best to hobnob with the various publications…Northwest Palate Magazine and especially Edible Seattle (one of my favs). The guys at Edible were really friendly and helpful. Hopefully, I’ll be meeting them again in the future for an article write-up!

There’s no way I could fairly assess the huge numbers of wine vendors. For one, I can’t drink that much! Also, though I’m an appreciator of the fruit of the vine, oenophile I am not. However, I did have a very nice Pinot Grigio/Chardonnay blend from Piety Flats Winery of the Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail in Yakima.

I could give you a rundown of every food vendor, the good and the bad. But, I know you have other things you’d like to do today, so how about the highlights?

Let’s start with the age old question, “Where’s the beef?”

Best Beef: Goes to The Capital Grille‘s signature dry-aged New York Striploin with Courvoisier Cream. Full of flavor and delicious. The Lobster Mac’n'Cheese wasn’t bad either!

Best Asian: Wild Ginger‘s Fragrant duck bao sandwiches with plum sauce and peppercorn salt, artfully presented in a giant bamboo steamer basket.

Best Seafood (in a soup form): Oceanaire Seafood Room‘s Campechana, a Mexican style ceviche full of shrimp, scallops, avocado, cilantro, and plenty of lime. Wonderfully balanced and seasoned. Served with a tortilla chip (they were one of the garnish of choice…we saw them everywhere!).

Best Vegetarian (savory): Of the few vegetarian restaurants in Seattle, Carmelita is the one I have not been to, but they brought their A-game with this Wild watercress flan, garnished with sunchoke chips and spicy maple syrup reduction. Notice the beautifully contrasting microgreens (or micropurples in this case)? They were everywhere, too.

Best Meat Lollipop: Okay, so I’m making a very specific category for this one seeing as it was the only meat lollipop, but Picazo‘s Lamb Lollipop with Chukar Cherries‘ Cherry Chipotle Barbeque Sauce was amazing! The perfect balance of sweet and savory, succulent tenderness and crisp charred bits. Wow! Plus they utilized a local company for their sauce…this is Taste Washington!, after all.

Best Overall Dish (savory): Drum roll please…(come on people, this is the “Best Picture” of the event)…hands down, it goes to Suncadia‘s Kasu Sea Bass, Jasmine Rice Stir-Fry and Coconut Green Curry! Absolutely incredible flavors. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so…their line was deep and full of compliments. Where, you may ask, is Suncadia? Well, it’s a newish resort (by the same people that brought us SunRiver in Bend, OR) near Cle Elum off of I-90 where a very great chef runs Portals restaurant. Can’t wait to stay there sometime!

Best Use of a Whole Animal in the Display: I love the Dahlia Lounge and had to figure out a way to give them an award, so here it is. Roast Suckling Pig with Green Garlic Sauce.

Best Cheese: I might be biased by my past experience with Mt. Townsend Creamery (the Trellis cheese plate!), but I’m giving it to these guys for their Seastack cheese. It is soft and creamy. Perfect!

Best Presentation (of an otherwise bland dish): Salty’s on Alki‘s Potato Vichyssoise with Maine Lobster and Arugula Essence. Loved the three colors of the potatoes, but arugula essence? I don’t know. It didn’t do it for me.

Honestly, there were more than 59 food vendors, so this is truly a shortened list of highlights! Let’s move into some sweets…

Best Chocolate: It’s a tie.

Carter’s Chocolates offered up some beautiful and tasty truffles flavored with wines, ales, and liquers. Plus, talking with owner Matt Carter was fun. How does he make his chocolates so beautiful? It’s apparently a question he gets asked a lot. His answer? Two years of pastry chef school (and some cocoa butter transfers, specifically). His favorite is the chocolate-ganache filled truffle. And will you check out those Easter eggs (they’re the size of ostrich eggs!!)? They are still available if you order by tomorrow (I think).

and

Oh! Chocolate win’s for their fantastic Mango Habenero Tuffle. So often Mango flavor translates as “soapy”, to quote the proprieter. But this was good with quite a lot of heat at the end from the chili. And the Honey Orange Caramel’s were super, too. Very creative flavors.

Best Non-Chocolate Truffle: Purple Cafe and Wine Bar‘s Tiramisu Truffle. Light and creamy, yet rich and full of that familiar tiramisu flavor. I loved it!

Best Overall Dessert: From the dramatic demonstration to the last delectable bite, Anita’s Crepes wins wins wins! A fresh crepe filled with slightly bruleed sugar, a squeeze of lemon juice, and garnished with Chantilly and a dusting of powdered sugar. I’d love to interview Anita for an article (maybe Edible Seattle). Please say yes!!

Best Coffee: Stumptown may have been the only coffee vendor there, but I know it would have been the winner of this category even if pitted against Starbucks, Tully’s, Peet’s, Tony’s, or any other. They have been my favorite for many years ever since my sister hooked me on their Belmont Street store down in Portland. But, now it’s a Seattle company, too (2 stores on Capitol Hill). Today they featured 3 coffees: an El Salvadorean bean called Finca Kiliminjaro, a Guatemalan bean, and an Ethiopean bean (very nuanced like a tea).

The woman at the counter informed me that Aida who owns the El Salvadorean beans, handpicks the peaberries off the coffee plants for this roast. Apparently coffee berries usually produce two beans per berry, but about 5% of the time they put all of their energy into only one berry. This is the peaberry which is supposed to have a bit more flavor. Very nice brew.

Thanks so much to FoodBuzz for letting me represent them at Taste Washington! I did my best to earn my ticket price.

Oh baby…last night we found a hidden gem in an East Bellevue strip mall. Before I share our secret, though, we need a little context.

Eight years ago, we’d barely been married a few months when we decided the time was right to head overseas. And not just a trip to Spain or France, but a jump over the other puddle to Asia. We spent a couple of weeks in “China-lite” Taipei acclimating, getting in our last movie, our last Starbucks, our last Costco (yeah, I was surprised at this one). Then a short flight to Hong Kong, and overnight stay in the Boy Scouts hotel.

The next morning we embarked on the last leg to our final destination…first crossing the border into mainland China via the train, then boarding a flight to the Sichuanese capital of Chengdu (Si Chuan means “Four Rivers”), a city of millions in the landlocked central province…the sweatbox of China. To some, this city would be intimidating enough. But it was not our final destination.

We had contracted to teach English in the Middle School/High School of She Hong, a teensy-by-Chinese-standards town of 30-40,000 people. A town built on the prosperity of the local distillery ToPai (Top Up) who’s name appeared on the town’s best hotel (the manager later photocopied every page of my Chinese/English phrase book), every city bus, and virtually everything else around.

A week after arriving we celebrated our first anniversary–the hosts brought out a birthday cake for me, not understanding our frantic gestures to explain an anniversary. Our guide inland left after a week, our time of sheltered cuisine (scrambled eggs with tomatoes, sauteed greens, non-innards meat parts) was over.

A boy (who was to become our favorite friend and student) accompanied us (along with the government type who tried to be our best buddy for a month or two) to our first restaurant experience. Corn kernels with chilies, fried dumplings dipped in a sauce so spicy I could barely stand it! Even my husband, who’d spent his teenage years dining on Korean fare, was sweating instantly. And of course, not a drop of water to wash it away. Only warm Sprite.

We quickly learned to order rice with our meals, although it wasn’t customary to eat rice until after a meal in these parts—a way to fill in the cracks more than anything. But rice had the magical power to cool down our dragon mouths.

By the end of the first month we’d found our favorite dumpling shop. All shops were literally holes in the wall…a garage door open to the street. We were so obsessed with this dumpling store that we freaked out when we lost the slip of paper the name was written on. Our Chinese was non-existent and to make matters worse, my husband is Asian (not Chinese). Come to find out, Asians can’t tell Asians apart in this neck of the woods. Everyone in town tried speaking Chinese to my poor husband. No one knew we were married at first—they literally though he was my useless interpreter who couldn’t speak Chinese!

So we developed a new system. I learned as much as I could about how to order at restaurants and then I took the reins, so to speak. If I initiated conversations, they were much easier on my Chinese!

And so we began frequenting all the local restaurants. We almost never cooked (except breakfast which was an egg fried in our wok and some steam bread dipped in sweetened condensed milk). Soon, another restaurant emerged as a favorite…the Dragon Somethingorother. We were never quite sure of it’s name. Once, while walking there, a little school boy literally walked into a pole due to his absolute astonishment at seeing me (the local rock star as the only white person in town).

But more about Dragon…there was this fish stew milky white with what I ascertained was lard, dumplings floating to the surface. A whole chicken simmering in a soup pot. These spicy noodles laced with a mouth numbing seed pod of some sort. And a gelatin-type thing topped with a chili mixture called Lian Fen (I could never pronounce this correctly!) that we shoved inside these little pita breads native to northern China. Tiny strips of potatoes fried with chilies. Beef braised with carrots so red that I mistook them for tomatoes at first.

And then there was the Hot Pot. Chengdu and especially it’s sister city ChongChing are known for this dish, a signature dish of Sichuan if ever one existed. We were only introduced to this dish through friends dying to show us the “smoked salmon/clam chowder” of Sichuan.

An enormous pot of oil laced with, can you guess? Yes, red chilies. Lots and lots of them. The oil is heated over a burner right at your table. In fancier establishments, the table is custom-made to fit the bowl with the burner underneath. Then you choose your dinner…thin strips of beef, chicken, fish, fish balls, squid, veg like potatoes or cabbage, tripe, tongue, mushrooms and many many mystery ingredients that you just smile, eat, and assure your host that you love. The most exotic (identifiable) Hot Pot ingredient we encountered were sea horses (in Chengdu).

So, eight long and full years later, after 3 babies, 9 moves, several jobs, a few states…we still had not found a genuinely Sichuan-flavored dining establishment. In fact, my taste for Chinese food was so changed that I could barely stand the regular “Lucky Whathaveyou” joint in any town. Sweet-and-Sour Chicken had lost it’s appeal (a flavor that we were told was created for Americans in the first place). My husband was disappointed with his attempt to eat Sichuanese in Bellevue.

Thank goodness for the FoodBuzz foodie blog dinner last month or I may have never known about this local secret! Last night, kid-free for the first time in a while, we cruised over to East Bellevue where on the corner of 148th and Main Street, in a very ugly strip mall lies The Szechuan Chef.

We nervously walked through the doors trying not to brace ourselves for further disappointment and were pleasantly surprised at the neat, clean, high-ceilinged, bright orange dining room. The tables were marble-esque and not at all that sticky unpleasant Asian restaurant feel! The service was quick, the menu quite thick.

We flipped straight to the Hot Pot page at the end and ordered 2 portions plus an order of those potato strips fried with chilies. The waiter seemed somewhat surprised that we didn’t go for the “half spicy/half broth” version, but straight up spicy. (I got a sideways glance…)

When it arrived, oh, the aroma. So familiar. The spiciness traveling up through our nostrils and hitting us in the back of the throat. The fish balls were my favorite, yummy and salty. And there was this great peanut sauce that, although I never ate it in Sichuan, was really tasty.

By the end of our quiet consumption, we had decided that we might need to try their dumplings just to be sure that we love this place. The fried potstickers tasted great and even had the authentically flavored dipping sauce. The sauce wasn’t as spicy as I remembered which could be due to my lesser quantity of tastebuds in my old age. (could I have lost that many?)

Anyways, The Szechuan Chef is a real as it comes. We can’t wait to go back and try all of the other many dishes. It seems an endless variety came out of the kitchen. And I even saw a photo of what looked like Lian Fen–the gelatinous strips. We’ll see if I get so lucky! If you like spicy and authentic, this should be your next stop. But, if sweet-and-sour chicken is as far as you go at whatever “Lucky China Garden Bamboo Dragon” you frequent, then this might not be your thing. But you really should give it a shot.

If ever there was a reason to buy a plane ticket and jet off to sunnier lands, this Spring Break in Seattle is the one. Equal parts cold and wet, infused with miserable throughout. Worst spring weather in more than 25 years. It has snowed more times than I care to remember this year with the most recent snow yesterday, April 1. The weather man must have had fun with that April Fool’s Day!

The prospect of playing outdoors being dashed to pieces (or rather drowned, in this case), my husband suggested some cooking lessons for our oldest child during her week home from school. She studiously pulled down my giant baking cookbook by Dorie Greenspan called, appropriately, “Baking”, and began to flip through the complicated recipes.

“Mommy, it’s time I learned this stuff,” she told me. I suggested starting with muffins, since we were totally out of food for breakfast the next morning. I had just enough pantry items to make a batch of muffins if I was able to steer her away from the Pecan Sticky Buns or Lemon Poppyseed Muffins. Plain Jane was what we needed.

With a few minor alterations, we settled upon the Allspice Crumb Muffins. However, allspice with it’s clove-like flavor ranks very low on my list of spice-likes. That small detail was easily remedied with cinnamon. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup whole milk. I possessed only about 3 TB of milk…fat free at that. Combined with a TB of half-n-half we were up to 1/4 cup of milk. I filled the remaining requirement with Rice Dream, which as it turns out is a perfectly fine substitute in this recipe.

My cute little girl donned her denim apron sewn for her by her Great Aunt Bev who “should sew for a store or something because she’s so good.” First she mixed the crumb topping…

1/2 c flour
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
5 TB cold butter, cut into bits

Her small fingers mashed it up until it became clumps of crumbs which she then licked, announcing that it didn’t taste very good yet.

After a hand washing…she read the next instructions and ingredients, turned on the oven to 375, lined the muffin pan with papers, and started in on the dry ingredients.

2 c flour (we discussed the scoop and sweep method)
1/2 c sugar
1 TB baking powder (this is what makes the muffins rise up)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt (or less if your butter is salted)

Then stir in,

1/4 c brown sugar (which has to be packed and in our case, crumbled from the hard clumps it had formed in the non-airtight container!)

Now for the wet ingredients…

Melt 1 stick (8 TB) butter (and let it cool so it doesn’t scramble the eggs)

Whisk in:

2 large beaten eggs
3/4 c whole milk (or other combo!)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir quickly to blend. Divide the batter evenly into the 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle on some streusel and gently press the crumbs into the muffin batter.

Bake for 20 minutes or as my daughter informed me, “the tops must be golden, mommy.” Ah, it’s great when your kids learn how to read! Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the pan. Then instruct your 6 year old to gently lift it up with a fork and transfer it to a wire rack to cool.

They’re like little coffee cakes. Very tasty.

Today, she chose Brownie Buttons. Cute little mini-muffin shaped brownies dipped in white chocolate and even flavored with a bit of orange zest.

We got to learn how to zest the orange, about the oils in the zest, and about pith.

Zest of 1/2 an orange mixed with
1 tsp sugar (set this aside)

Butter your mini-muffin tin and preheat the oven to 350.

Melt together over very low heat, stirring constantly:

4 TB butter
2 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (and we added a little bit of extra dark chocolate)
1/3 c brown sugar

Stirring got boring and so she took a little time off to play PBS Kids with her brother…

After it melts smooth, let it cool a couple of minutes (again, so it doesn’t scramble the eggs).

Add in:

orange zest mixture
1/2 tsp vanilla (which doesn’t taste good…trust me)
1 large egg, beaten

Mix thoroughly, then sprinkle on:

1/4 c plus 2 TB flour

Mix only until flour is incorporated. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups (the recipe says it makes 16, but we barely had enough for 12). Bake for 14-16 minutes. Allow to cool 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. When cooled, dip in:

2 oz melted white chocolate (or more if needed)

Refrigerate about 15 minutes until the chocolate sets.

Tomorrow’s baking lesson will have to come from a healthy cookbook!

My kindergartner came home yesterday with her April calendar all made up with a paper umbrella and pipe cleaner handle. I noticed the upcoming birthdays of the class (very few, thank goodness…I thought I might have to become a barista or something to finance the gifts). Then checked for holidays.

April 12…a picture of a half-broken egg…no label. Wait…we can’t type the word “Easter” for fear of offending someone who may not wish to sully their eyes with the word…like it releases mustard gas upon being sighted? Okay, they must not know about the missionary history of St. Patrick’s Day because that one was printed. I guess a holiday known for it’s poor food and lots of beer is actually what we want our kids to know about. But, anyways…..

Easter is coming in two weeks. Do you know what you’re making? Lamb roast is traditional because it mimics the lamb eaten by Jewish people celebrating the Passover. And you know why the holidays are always connected, right? Because Jesus was crucified during Passover and then rose again the third day–which is the reason we celebrate Easter…new life and all. Spring chicks are a nice symbol of new life…easier to merchandise and commercialize than an eerily empty tomb I suppose.

But, as I’ve mentioned before, my family was decidedly anti-lamb when it came to Easter dinner. We were more in the “ham” or “roast beef” camp. I always voted for ham, the sweet porky roast being my birthday dinner choice for years and years as a child until I discovered teriyaki steak at Black Angus (there were limited restaurant choices near Littlerock, WA).

I even loved the church potluck ham, served very thin and topped with apple sauce. It seemed there were usually the scalloped potatoes and butter-flake rolls to accompany this meal. And I seem to remember that broccoli-raisin-red onion salad slathered in a mayo sauce (or Miracle Whip in the case of my mom’s recipe—on a side note, I have not had any luck converting my husband to the stuff…something about it having “whipped miracles” as an ingredient).

Ham and roasted pig (lechon) is a Filipino favorite. Thankfully Heaven ordained at least one uniting force of common ground in my mixed-racial marriage…although I’m inclined to think marital differences occur in the most racially-uniform marriages!

My mother-in-law boiled their Christmas ham in pineapple juice and bay leaves before roasting it in the oven. They ate it at midnight every Christmas Eve because that was when my father-in-law got off his swing shift casino schedule.

I’ve dabbled in celebrity chef/food network type recipes, but usually end up changing them or never making them again on account of expensive and rare ingredients that seem to permeate those dishes. Four years ago, I made a ham breakthrough…even converting my ham-standard mother-in-law. And two Christmases ago, I served our favorite ham dinner with some friends (including a Southern-type who won’t even eat turkey for Thanksgiving on account of his preference of ham…he was probably on a government watch list for this anti-American activity until recently).

I tell you, if you can’t get on board with the lamb roast, nothing beats the sheer cost-effective goodness of ham. Don’t get one of those spiral cut kind because they’re already loaded with extra ingredients. But, I’m telling you, you can feed a boat-load of people with one ham AND have the bone plus some meaty goodness left for a great Ham and Bean Soup (maybe I’ll do this recipe next post).

This recipe is the one…am I right Kristi?

The Ham You Should Make

1 ham (in a bag, unsliced, in “natural” juices with the bone)
1/4 c brown mustard
2 c dark brown sugar (I usually end up using less, though)
1 oz (1/8 c) bourbon (Jack Daniels is one brand…)
2 c crushed ginger snap cookies

Heat the oven to 250 degrees.

Remove ham from the bag; rinse and drain thoroughly. Place ham, cut side down, in a roasting pan. Using a small paring knife or a utility knife with a new blade set to the smallest setting, score the ham from bottom to top, spiraling clockwise as you cut. Only cut through the skin and fat layers. Rotate the ham after each cut so the scores are no more than 2 inches across. Then repeat, spiraling counter-clockwise. (Diamond pattern is what you’re going for.)

Tent the ham with heavy duty foil, insert a thermometer, and cook 3-4 hours until the internal temp in the deepest part is 130 degrees.

Remove the ham from the oven, remove the foil from the ham, and use tongs to pull away diamonds of skin and any sheets of fat that come off with it.

Raise the oven temp to 350 degrees.

Dab the ham dry with paper towels, brush with a liberal coat of mustard. Sprinkle on the brown sugar and pack it onto the ham until it is coated. Spritz or sprinkle with the bourbon, then loosely pack on as many crushed ginger snap cookies as possible.

Insert the thermometer in a new hole. Return to the oven, uncovered, for about 1 hours until the temp is 140 degrees.

Let the ham rest on the counter lightly covered with the foil for 30 minutes before carving.

I’ve got to give credit to Uncle Alton Brown for this recipe. It’s so good that I haven’t altered it a bit and therefore can’t take any credit myself…except for the fact that I make it and serve it to very happy friends and family! Thanks A.B.!

This month, Julie Jams is a featured blogger on LookandTaste.com. Very excited and thrilled to be a part of it. Click the link to read the full article.

Maybe it was too new to mention in the Seattle Met list, but Kirklanders are going a little nuts for our new favorite cupcake shop Sweet Cakes. Certain men I know have even had to prove that it was a dessert joint they were going to and not another kind of joint, when mentioning Sweet Cakes to their co-workers.

I’d been wanting to try this place for a while when I got the opportunity to sample the cupcakes at a children’s birthday party recently. Yum. (I’d say “love at first bite” but that’s cheesy). Of course, I tried the Red Velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting…maybe one of the most delicious inventions on the planet. I’m a sucker for cream cheese frosting, but the moist buttermilk cake was great, too!

Since then, I’ve also sampled the chocolate, mint-chocolate, and coconut varieties. The coconut ranks a close second on the delicious scale…the rest haven’t been quite as close. But, Red Velvet is the one for me!

If you are in town, check them out! The staff is friendly and the sweets are tasty.

My own attempt at cupcakes for my son’s 4th birthday turned out beautifully thanks to my friend Wendy’s:

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
3/4 c warm water
3/4 c buttermilk
3 TB oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 and line the muffin tin with paper liners.

Sift together cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

In a separate bowl, blend the eggs, water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla until smooth. Add in the dry ingredients, scraping down the bowl. Mix well.

Divide batter among muffin cups, filling 2/3 full (makes about 18-24). Bake about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

For icing, combine 4 oz finely chopped bittersweet chocolate, 1 TB corn syrup, and 2/3 c heavy cream that has been heated. Stir together to melt the chocolate. Chill it a while to thicken. Then, dip the cupcakes and let drip over a wire rack.

If you chill them, they are kind of like a delicious version of Hostess cupcakes, (minus the whipped cream filling)!

Last night was the second Julie Jams cooking class. This class’s theme was “Wild & Crazy Salads”. We swapped the regular garden variety salad for some more interesting choices including Jicama Orange, Spinach Orzo Pilaf, Lemon-Garlic Quinoa, and Scandanavian Slaw.

Since this class was announced via the blog, we actually had a couple of people I’d never met. It was really fun to see some new souls included. There was a mother-daughter duo as well (the mother is a long-time friend of my mom’s who happened to be her own “Julie Jams” type in their group of friends!). And a couple of my own friends made it.

We started the night with a few snacks and small talk and then dove right into the salads.

First up for prep was the Scandanavian Slaw. A departure from traditional mayonnaise-drenched variety, this slaw has a refreshing crunch thanks to the apples, fennel, celery, and sliced cabbages. The dressing consists of buttermilk, cider vinegar, oil, and sugar. This one needed a little bit of time to marinate, so it went into the fridge until the end.

Second up was the Jicama Orange salad. Though all the salads have their merits, this might have been the People’s Choice last night. After a little discussion on the tuber called Jicama, I peeled the brown knobby vegetable and cut it into matchsticks. A mixture of oranges from Navel to Valencia to Blood varieties brightened up the salad, carefully sectioned and de-membraned (you need a very sharp knife for that!). The juice from a lime on top, followed by a sprinkling of chili powder, salt, and pepper.

Ooooo…this is a beauty of a salad especially if you use the Blood oranges. Their ruby colored juice stains the Jicama and the small flecks of chili powder add visual interest (and a little heat). This salad went straight to the tasters. There were no leftovers to put in the fridge at the end of the night!

Then came the salads with a cooked component.

Thirdly, we made the Lemon Garlic Quinoa salad. It was fun to introduce this grain to most of the guests. At 10.5 grams of protein per cup (plus calcium and other nutrients), this South American grain packs a nutritional punch. It has an earthy almost nutty aroma. After being rinsed of its bitter outer layer, I cooked the quinoa in boiling water like pasta for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, I assembled the rest of the salad and the dressing…diced carrots, minced parsley, sunflower seeds topped with a mixture of olive oil, soy sauce, mashed garlic, and lots of lemon juice. Once the quinoa cooked and was drained, I added it to the salad and mixed. We ate this at the end to allow time for it to cool down. This salad is great served cold, as well. And it travels like a champ…nothing gets smooshed or soggy.

Finally, we got to the Spinach Orzo Pilaf. Orzo is a rice-shaped pasta. It cooked for about 7 minutes (al dente), then I added it to the baby spinach while it was still hot. A little fried garlic went on top, then it was mixed up and covered for a few minutes to let the spinach wilt a bit. Finally, some freshly grated parmesan cheese finished out the flavors. This one is best served immediately and doesn’t really keep that well on account of the wilted spinach. Try it with chicken or fish (mmm…with salmon).

Thanks everyone for coming! I had a fun time with you all. And I look forward to the next class…I’m thinking Mediterranean Dinner night.

If you have any comments or questions, I’d love to hear back from you.

Ciao!

Three years ago, I opened the wardrobe door and entered the magical world of bread pudding thanks to one of my favorite restaurants Bennett’s Pure Food Bistro. Since then, I’ve tried the dessert at multiple food venues, desperately trying to duplicate the magic at home. Most of the time restaurant versions disappoint because they are not made to order and are therefore reheated unsuccessfully (yes, that means cold in the middle, yuck!).

My best girl Kasey gave me her secret family recipe in exchange for my firstborn, but for some reason I can never get it to set right (I’m sure it’s user error!). Anyhow, we decided she had enough girls already, so I got my daughter back.

I’ve given all of the celebrity chefs’ recipes a whirl (well, maybe not all of them) and recipes range from cinnamon and raisins to chocolate to nuts. Most unsuccessful are when I just wing it…hmmm, maybe it is something to do with baking and custard chemistry…

But I stuck with it. And over the years I’ve gotten closer and closer to perfection. And then, this morning, I had a breakthrough producing the big prize. In all my recipe searches, one special ingredient caught my eye…croissants. Yeah, you know it’s going to be good.

This morning on the way home from my preschool drop off, the baby and I stepped into The French Bakery, a fairly new shop in Kirkland. Fresh off the racks were some beautiful, impossibly flaky croissants. Crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.

One of the recipes I stumbled upon along the way used Bourbon to flavor the pudding. Seeing as how I never stock Bourbon, I got to thinking…..vanilla extract is delicious AND uses Bourbon for the solution. Perfect.

And instead of chocolate which is my normal dessert default…caramel. Smooth, sweet, and a little bit salty to drizzle over the top.

A word of warning…the following recipe is not allowable in any sort of diet where you’re trying to actually reduce your waistline. But….iz soooo good.

Julie Jams Bread Pudding

First, make the caramel sauce so it has time to thicken up. And on a side note, if you’ve never noticed a difference between butters, you HAVE to try Kerrygold Irish butter. I swear it stands heads and shoulders above my regular butter. And, yes, I tried it plain as in a little bite on a spoon or, you know, two.

2 TB butter (Kerrygold!!)
1 1/2 TB brown sugar
1 1/2 TB white sugar
2 tsp water
1/4 tsp Kosher salt
2 TB heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk together the butter, sugars, water, and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add the cream and vanilla, boiling 30 seconds. Remove from heat. Let it sit and thicken for about an hour (or less)

For the pudding, tear up and place in a 1 QT casserole dish:

2 croissants (not too tiny of pieces)

In a saucepan, combine:

1/2 c sugar
2 TB water

Whisk together and then heat over MH until it is bubbly and ideally amber in color (although, my past experience with sugar crystallizing makes me a little chicken to take it all the way). After about 5 minutes of all that, remove from the heat and stir in:

1/2 c heavy cream
1 TB vanilla (or Bourbon if you like)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Then add:

1/2 milk
2 eggs, beaten

Pour all of this over your croissants, then let it sit for about 10 minutes. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Leave it alone on the counter for a little while, maybe 15 minutes so it can really set up. Then carve out 4 pieces (or eat it out of the dish…), drizzle with the caramel and, look out, or someone will see you licking out the dish!

(To reheat leftovers..haha…heat the oven to 300 and warm for 8-10 minutes or until you can’t stand it any longer).

Before I get to the main event, I should first apologize to said hostess for failing to email photos for her post. I fully intended on getting them there this morning, but that was before my baby woke up about 89 times coughing in the night. I spent most of the morning in the doctor’s office and the pharmacy. Somehow, I just didn’t get to sending those pics.

Brasa is a Spanish cuisine restaurant owned by Tamara Murphy and Bryan Hill (Tamara also owns the Elliot Bay Cafe in the bookstore). It is a darkly lit, warmly colored dining room and bar (which, I’m told, is packed out on weeknights). Located about 6 blocks north of Union Street on 3rd, it is advisable not to park your car in the 2nd and Union parking garage unless you like long cold walks down questionable 2nd street alone in the dark.

Although a few men were included in the invite, the group that showed up turned out to be all of the feminine persuasion. I arrived about 15 minutes late (I know, crazy for me to get there late!) expecting that the group would slowly dwindle in. However, I was surprised that I was nearly the last one there. This landed me a seat at the end of the tables.

On my left, there was a reunion between Seattle Tall Poppy and the GastroGnome…lively ladies with a lot to say and catch up on. On my right, were Kooky Culinary and Puget Sound Cookery…perhaps the complete opposite in personality to the women on my left. These two were friendly, but definitely on the quiet side.

Of course, I came totally unprepared as per normal Julie style. No business cards to hand out. No pre-thought list of questions for my fellow bloggers. The only thing I’d managed to prepared for was the menu which I’d looked up in order to narrow down my choices. But I was keeping an open mind for whatever “something special” that the chef might throw our way (did I miss it or was there “nothing special”?).

Our savvy server kept our goblets filled with either a red or a white, undoubtedly helping the conversations flow from their halting beginnings. It did feel a bit like the first day in the junior high cafeteria all over again. Questions ranged from “Why do you blog?” (uh…for blinding fame, of course) to “What restaurant do you take out-of-town guests to?” (those are few and far between, but Zeek’s Pizza, Pho Express, and Cafe Julie..as in my home cooking…are the usual).

The conversations made me realize a couple of things. First, this group was very well traveled. Most Asian destinations were covered in just the 4 women closest to my end of the table. Secondly, I don’t get out much! My knowledge of Seattle restaurants is mostly limited to reviews I’ve read in various magazines.

But let’s get to the food, shall we? I ordered the Fig Pizzetta for starters–a small pizza with figs, chevre cheese, serrano ham, sprinkled with thyme. It was pretty good, but I could have done with a bit less thyme (it was a bit “medicinal” as Seattle Tall Poppy pointed out).

This was an everyone-shares event. So I also got to try the Octopus (okay, a little chewy, but hey, it’s octopus),

the pitas and hummus (not bad, but I’m not switching from the Meze’s hummus), bone marrow with fig jam (yum, nice and salty),

and the curried mussels (the sauce was amazing!!). Go for the mussels for sure.

For the main course, I thought I should order something very Brasa-esque. Portuguese Pig or Paella. Kooky Culinary and I went for the pig (half-portions are ample). Several chunks of slow roasted pig sat upon half of a roasted yukon gold potato. These were swimming in a red paprika sauce garnished with a few clams. Honestly, I was expecting amazing. How can you go wrong with pig? Well, you can dry it out. My pig-mate and I discovered that it took a dousing in the paprika sauce to moisten it up. And I know that paprika sauce is supposed to be warm and savory, but this is pig we’re talking about and a little sweet would have been nice. Next time, I’m getting the Lamb Burger on the Happy Hour menu ($7!!!). It had a great flavor and was decidedly not dry!

After our dinner dishes were collected, several of the women made a dash to the W.C. I took the opportunity to steal one of the chairs on the other end of the table. This is where I met the hostess, Nurit from 1 Family, Dianasaur, The Pink Hobart, Cakespy, Diggin Food, and one other who’s name is escaping me (sorry lady from the coast!!).

These women were all enjoyable to talk to, warm and friendly. We got some gardening tips from Diggin Food, some “sweet” stories from Cakespy, cooking class questions from the super sweet Dianasaur, and kid swaps with Nurit.

Spanish donuts turned out to be churros with a chocolate dipping sauce and maybe the most interesting dessert on the menu. The standards like trio of gelato, creme brulee, chocolate cheesecake all made an appearance.

I’d say that the highlight was meeting Tamara towards the end. She shared her recent “Life of a Pig” experience which was fun to hear. Thanks to Nurit for arranging this event!

Ciao.