zero waste, revisited.

since posting about these folks,

I find myself thinking of them over and over.

I found Bea's blog, which is pretty interesting,

and some nice photos at Sunset's site.

modern fondant cakes and cookies

my friends Greg and Daniel

have a new company, Modern Bite

these cookies are designed after tiles, and can make nice patterns till you eat them

 and they sell fondant cakes with poppy colors

and trompe-l'oeil patterns!

near-zero waste family

this is pretty impressive.

plus, all that decanting looks great.

I like that they also have a designy house. 

it makes it seem like zero waste doesn't mean doing without.

thanks Anna McDonnell!

apricot jam

its that time again

this year I used about 1/3 cup sugar 

for about 5 cups of apricots

and no other ingredients

and skipped the frozen plate

more minimal than last year's version

studio mama outdoor kitchen

attractive little outdoor kitchen you could build yourself

from the free pdf

which has amazingly clear drawings and instructions.

studio mama is great. 

i posted about them in my old blog too

pizza!

this post has been inspiring me to make pizza

and we were lucky enough to have dinner

with pizza-making friends this weekend

and learned a few important things.

the most delightful thing was that it is dandy

but NOT ESSENTIAL for the dough to rise

for two hours!  

that is liberating information.

Cuban style black beans

I owe this recipe to several people who have requested it.  

This is largely influenced by my Cuban in-laws and some of the cookbooks they've given me.

1 cup black beans, soaked in 4 cups water  

1 yellow onion, diced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, chopped

1 tbsp minced garlic

sea salt to taste
pinch of ground cumin

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 bay leaf

4 packets concentrated chicken soup stock or 4 bouillon cubes

1 tbsp olive oil 

1/2 cup wine

This recipe comes out best in a pressure cooker although it is not essential.  You can soak the beans overnight, which will make the cooking time faster, but the pressure cooker can make them tender in an hour or so, even if you don't soak them.  

warm the olive oil (i love tibvrtini) in the pressure cooker and toss in the bay leaf and about a tablespoon of minced garlic.  When it begins to bubble a bit add the onion.  As the onion begins to brown, add 1/2 cup of red or white wine and the tomato paste.  Simmer for a minute and add the bell pepper and the beans with their soaking water along with some sea salt and the stock/bouillon cubes.  Stir to scrape the browned onion from the pot and then put the pressure cooker lid on.  After the pressure cooker starts steaming, you can reduce the heat to low and let it cook like that for about an hour, or up to two hours if you haven't soaked the beans.  In a regular pot, cover and stir occasionally.  Cooking time will be longer - just cook till the beans are tender and have burst their skins, and add water as necessary.

Serve with rice.

from seed to skillet

Susan Heeger has a new gardening book coming out in December.  

Chock full of information
about how to grow an edible organic garden at home
and then cook it up in your kitchen.
Beautiful too!

more info here

preorder here

espresso

I saw this beauty at Celine's house.

It is from Jura and is my latest object of desire.

And it comes in white!

superior pressure cooker

I'm a big believer in buying excellent kitchen tools.  

This Kuhn Rikon is supposed to be the best pressure cooker.  

woodside farmers market

on sunday we sold apricots and apricot jam at this little farmers market in woodside.  

apricot jam

just made apricot jam for the first time.

the recipe is kind of a hybrid of those from Christopher Lloyd,  food.com, homesick texan,  and waitrose.com, but i think it most closely resembles the Mark Bittman low-sugar recipe.

5 cups roughly chopped apricots

1 1/2 cup sugar

3 tbsp lime juice

macerate overnight in a covered bowl in the fridge

bring to a boil 15 to 30 minutes

do the frozen plate test

can and process in boiling water 5 minutes

I'd like to get some jars from Weck.  lovely.