Various Recipes and Links, as Promised

Part 1:

A website all about onigiri, or sticky rice balls.

http://www.justhungry.com/2007/01/onigiri_omusubi_revisited_an_e.html

A great chocolate chip cookies recipe:

http://www.foodgeeks.com/recipes/2245

The briefly-mentioned marshmallow surprise cookies:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/surprise-cookies



More recipes to follow.

My Sourdough Baby

Motherhood is a painful experience, isn't it? You create your baby with loving care! You raise that child until (s)he can touch the stars. And then, when they reach adulthood, you bake them into a delicious loaf of bread and save a bit of them in a jar, to grow a new child.

Oh. Did you not have the same experience?

You can probably tell I'm not talking about a human child. (Unless you know me really well). I'm referring to a yeast baby, or sourdough starter! Sit right back in your chair; this is very exciting.

Essentially, a sourdough starter is an environment for wild yeasts to grow in! Usually, you can get a strain of standardized yeast from the store. Or, you know, buy a loaf of bread. But sourdough tastes so good, and everything is better homemade.

Of course, I'm going to take you on my journey of yeast.

It started last week. I said to my friend "What recipe should I try next?" I made the mistake of asking somebody who knows stuff about food. He had all sorts of wild ideas, and I didn't want to disappoint. After a long, arduous search for a particular type of bread he once ate in a foreign country, we found the equivalent recipe. Sourdough!

So I mixed a starter. It's the second time I've actually tried, and the first time it's lived. Annnnd I haven't technically used it yet, so you can journey with me!

Find a glass jar with a lid. Make sure it doesn't smell weird; I almost used a pickle jar. Gag.

Find a clean washcloth, or cheesecloth.

Take about half a cup flour and as much pineapple juice. If you don't have pineapple juice, use water mixed with a couple teaspoons of sugar.

Mix. Leave it open to the air for a bit.

Put the washcloth across the jarmouth, and the lid loosely on top.

Put it in a warm, dry corner. For the next three to four days, "feed" the starter with a bit of flour and water. If your jar starts to get full, pour out half the starter before its feeding.

When it gets bubbles, (A LOT of bubbles), and a nice, beery smell, you're done with step one! That's where I'm stuck right now. I haven't had the chance to make a loaf out of it yet...it's so vexing.

For further, better-detailed information, visit http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

Sourdough can live forever. I've heard tell of one strain being kept alive for over a hundred years.

More recipes to follow! Podcast soon to be updated. Look for it.

The wonders of Kitchen Hygiene

Now, I am not the most hygienic person. If you care to become female and enter my bedroom, you will note at least three dishes filthing up my desk. I don't know if this counts as hygiene, but there is clothing all over my floor and bed. Unfolded. Unmade.

That's not so bad, though. What's bad can be the kitchen.

Imagine a counter. Encrusted with prehistoric filth.

1. Clean your counters and stovetops.

Imagine for me a counter, encrusted with prehistoric filth. There is a tomato drip, petrified over a period of days. A dusting of flour here, with a circle taken out of it where something else once stood.

Just grab yourself a spray bottle fulla cleaning liquid (at my house, we always used ammonia) and spray away, wiping with a damp washcloth. Make sure you don't have any food out, unless you like mutating into horrific semblances of what might've been human. Which you might...

2. Wash your dishes thoroughly.

The dishwasher just doesn't do it sometimes, and most of the time, it doesn't do it for every dish. To translate that to English for ya...

A dishwasher is a fine, fine device, a device created for the convenience of tortured housewives everywhere. Rendered moderately useless by the rise of feminism and the enslavement of men, it is nonetheless not simply a dishwasher, but a convenience machine.

But it cannot do everything. For super dirty food, you're gonna have to scrub the excess off by hand. If you shove too many dishes all up in there, not one of those dishes is going to get clean.

Some things just should not go in the dishwasher. Pretty much anything plastic is a no-no-HECK-NO, anything wooden, and most pots or pans. For a full list, I recommend doing a search online. It's better to be safe about it.

3. Clean out your microwave, cover food.

You can cut out ninety percent of the problem by covering spattering foods with a paper towel before microwaving them. However, at this point, you've probably built up a fine layer of grime and food particles in your microwave oven. Get up in there with a scrubby sponge, pal, because that muck isn't coming off by magic.

4. Clean out your oven from time to time.

Food spatters. Ovens cook food. It's a fact. Most ovens have a self-clean option. If not, research good cleaning methods and rub up that elbow grease. Lucky you.

5. Don't leave food out overnight or for long periods of time.

I don't know if this counts more as hygiene or safety. Nonetheless, after you've cooked, please wrap up and store food immediately in the refrigerator. Bacteria aren't a hit-or-miss thing. If you leave your food out, just don't risk it.

6. Wash your hands constantly while cooking, or even when you're not.

Now, when I'm not cooking, I'm a touchy, feely, pokey, scratchy, itchy type of person. I rub my face, I scratch my nose, I play with my hair. But once the oven goes on, the hands come off, and I do not touch anything while I cook. If I have to, I wash my hands thoroughly with soap and water before I continue my cooking adventures.

7. Tie your long hair back. If your hair comes out a lot, I recommend a hairnet.

I can remember my mother's beauteous voice, demanding that we get our hairy little heads out of her kitchen. Hair has a tendency to fall out spontaneously, and if you ask me, one in a million hairs have a magnet attracted to food in them. Just tie your hair back or wear a hairnet. Nobody likes sliding a long, wet strand of hair out of their mouth in the middle of their meal. At resteraunts, it's a deal breaker.

8. Wear sanitary gloves/facemask, maybe.

If you're sick, and must absolutely cook for others, please wash constantly, and wear a sanitary face mask and also gloves. You don't want your labor of love to turn into a gift from Typhoid Mary.

9. Scrub out your sinks.

If your convenience machine is broken or occupied, using your sinks will fare no better if they're full of germs and dirt. Sinks get dirty just like anything else, so a round of detergent and a scrubby sponge is just the ticket to help you avoid food-related illness.

10. Organize your fridge and cupboards to prevent buildup of expired, rotting, and generally horrifyingly disgusting food.

You buy a lot of food in your lifetime, if so privileged. Sometimes, you forget that you have some of that food. It gets pushed to the back of the fridge, it hides under the cupboard. Sometimes, you never take it out of the grocery bag. That's why it's a good idea to practice organization.

Recently, I emptied out my entire cupboard, lined everything up, and threw away all the expired stuff. It was more than I expected! Then, I put everything back, in neat little rows. Now I can find just about anything, and though the borders of darkness that is untidiness nibble away at my state line, I am positive that organization has helped me in cooking and in a more stress-free lifestyle.

There's my lecture. Ignore the errors.

CI-AO

Julianna