Black Bean Sauce take one

Hey Gang,
I misplaced my camera, but ended up taking some pic of my dinner last night with my iphone. I used some of that black bean sauce with some cumin coriander and garlic sauteed spinach along with some mushroom and onion quesadillas made with some reconstituted masa dough.
Some nuclear salsa from red hill farms adds some more heat to the dish, and served alongside I have a raspberry tequila shrub. Maybe I'll drop some recipes on you sometime soon, but its all pretty straightforward (besides the masa dough which you gotta look up a recipe for) and is a prelude to my combining these elements together with some shortribs......
As you can see the quesadillas are really more like cornmeal turnovers than what I think of as quesadillas.



Oh and how wonderful, the local wildlife came by to help clean the plate...

Everything turned out great, I really only a bit of spices to the garlic and butter sauteed spinach, so I'll probably add a little more next time as the cumin and coriander barely came through, but otherewise all the other elements were spot on. The quesadillas were soft and pillowy and the sauce had a great spicy smokiness too it that added a great punch to every bite. Can't ait to bring on the meat, I'll probably just reduce the number of quesadillas and add in a short rib... delicious.

Artisan blah in 5 minutes

Oh... thats why it takes artisans longer than 5 minutes to make bread...
I made some of the olive oil dough from the book and made prosciutto flatbread... not so great.

1) the bread isn't really flat it is more of a foccacia (the directions said to leave it an inch thick),
2) The bread itself is much lacking in flavor,
3) the crust is burnt on the bottom but pale on top, perhaps partially do to my cooking technique, but I did follow the directions in the recipe it was not crisp last night and now after having it sealed away overnight it ahs absorbed some moisture and is just an impediment to getting to the prosciutto inside
4) The extremely wet dough advocated in the book is very difficult to work with.

If I had to say something nice I would say that the crumb of the bread is actually not bad which lends me hope that some other types of bread could turn out ok. My plan is to try the olive oil dough again in some manner of pizza to see if it is any good in that regard. I will also suspend judgement on the technique until I make the classic dough and make a boule, a baguette, and perhaps some sandwich bread. Likewise I guess I should try one of their enriched breads as well to see if the technique can work for dessert breads and pastries.

Long time no blog.

Hey gang,
Haven't posted in a while, sometime I get anxious when posting stuff for real and so I avoid doing it. Its not that I'm afraid what people will think its just the act of putting something together for blog publication. Anyhow my new plan is to make this entirely into my own forum for my food and drink musings... so here I go.

I've been thinking about and working with beans a lot lately. I am not sure whether the motivation is that amazing cassoulet I had this winter, the delicious beans I discovered at Ranchogordo.com (which were one of the few foodstuffs of mine to survive the recent move), or just plain frugality, but I've had beans on the brains lately.

I recently made some chipotle black beans and some curried carrots and black eyed peas and thinking of bean soups and pureed soups and how sauces can be concentrated soups I've constructed some imaginary menus to go with them. Both sets of beans are somewhat spicy and are well spiced with dried chiles, cumin, and coriander dominating the black beans and garam masala with cayenne, coriander, and cardamom finding a home in the black eyed peas.

SO. my menus are:

Black eyed peas menu

Appetizer- spiced flatbread (I'll figure out something from my new 5 minute artisan bread book)

Drink- (I'm determined to make up a specific cocktail for dinner parties to avoid the 'what would you like' confusion )- Honi Honi (rum, lemon, apricot brandy, orgeat) or maybe go crazy with a singapore sling, I just have to replenish my cointreau and I'll have all the ingredients.

Meal- Grilled sambal, garlic, and soy marinated chicken thighs on a bed of curried carrot and blackeyed pea puree served with roasted cauliflower and cilantro (adapted from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook)

Dessert- Mango pudding (probably based off this recipe but I may look around some more and/ or go off on my own using coconut milk and less gelatin) garnished with a fruit salad with chopped mango, mint, and lime juice (what other fruit might be good in that salad?)


Black Bean menu

Appetizer- smoked paprika flatbread w/ lardons (on a flatbread kick and trying to use up my homemade guanciale... yeah just figured I'd drop that one on ya).

Drink- all this food is so darn spicy I'm never sure what to make (nothing too alcoholic), but I think some caipirinha's maybe with some pineapple muddled in might be nice. Although come to think of it this copa verde from chow might be just the thing.

Meal- Braised Chipotle Short Ribs with a cilantro, lime zest and garlic gremolata on a bed of pured chili spiced frijoles (which I'll probably mix some of the braising liquid into) served with some sort of mexican flavored green vegetable (I'll check my Rick Bayless cookbooks... mmm tastes like mexican)

Dessert- After all that heavy stuff I'm down for something fresh so I'll save my goat caramel for later... I think my summer berry pudding is always a hit, its basically layers of bread (brioche or challah works well) with fruit in syrup layered in between. Basically a fresh uncooked bread pudding served with whipped cream.

Anyhow, thats all I have in me for now. Perhaps I'd best make some friends in this new city before I start planning dinner parties, but for me half the fun is in the planning. I'll repost if any of these recipes or menus become a reality.

-Hank