Between Nails and Thread

There has been a little more going on during the days than just the sewing room…. redo and quilts.

My sister, discovered Sour Dough Starter and was loving it so much she sent me some (from King Arthur Flour), and then pestered me until I mixed it up and got it growing.

It’s a cold starter, so it spends it’s off time in the refrigerator, not on the counter collecting flies and stinking the place up.

To know why she was so persistent you have to understand. We spent our early years in the Bay Area of Cali, and sour dough bread -specifically Fisherman's Wharf Sour Dough was the BREAD. Offer me seconds at the table and I would have chosen sour dough bread and butter over just about anything else…. even if I was FULL I could manage one more piece of bread and butter.

It was a staple in the family. Salami, not just any salami, Italian Hard Dry Salami and sour dough was an appetizer!!!! or lunch or a snack. To me it brings back time spent with my fathers side of the family.Immigrants from Italy and restaurateurs in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th Century. My family can lay claim to the ‘Bohemian Movement’ in San Francisco. You can read a bit of a description here and more about the actual attendees and murals here. This is an image from the book by Warren Una chronicling the creators of the murals, diners and the restaurant.

Any way back to the bread! I got the starter going and made my first loaves!

Oh wow and yum and can you say gone! I have made it a couple of more times, but I have a little problem. The smoke detector, (near the kitchen) does not like sour dough baking. It goes off, while the bread is in the oven…. and when you have 6 or 7 of the things telling you all at the same time …. about smoke being detected…. it is a little annoying to say the least. To add to the noise level, Axel sings right along with the smoke detectors. It take the better part of a day to make 2 loaves of bread. We don’t just like tangy, we like SUPER tangy…. to get that flavor takes a little over 12 hours- of feed, mix, rise, rise and bake!  This is my first batch- need to work on the shaping of the loaves. I have I think figured out a way to fool the smoke detectors. I have a small fan that I point at it and force more air past it. The last time it worked and it was a very quiet 30 minutes.

More Later!

Chinese Food

On Sunday I was able to attend a cooking demonstration. One of the best Chinese Restaurants in Pretoria (Jasmine Palace in Constantia Park), allowed about 10 of use to see and partake of some dishes in 2 hours. We were all asked to bring our own knives and cutting boards.

Mr. Lee the Chef, started off by showing us the proper way to peel and pare a pineapple. I will try that the next time I have one. His knife was very sharp… and that is an understatement!!! The peel just slid off the pineapple.

The first dish up was Sweet and Sour Bean Curd (Tofu). The peeled pineapple wound up in this. He shared a few other techniques on cutting/chopping ingredients… but I was not the photographer, but I did bring the camera.

Getting to the finished dish took about 45 minutes. We were going to do 5 dishes… and I was beginning to fret that we would be here much longer than 2 hours or not get them all done… not sure which was more worrisome… We didn’t start until 3 and were supposed to be finished by 5.

The Sweet and Sour sauce was not part of the lesson… he did give us a verbal run down on the ingredients. He said he makes 60 liters a week, so he gave us a recipe for a weeks worth of sauce at home. The ingredients started with 1 liter of vinegar…. and well you get the idea!

Second was Spicy Calamari. This is where the knives came in handy. Mr. Lee gave us each a Squid Tube and showed us how to open them. Some of the funny faces when handling the tube were really worth the price of admission!!! The kitchen we were working in was above the restaurant. You can see Mr. Lees cooking station with most of the ingredients ready and I am in the back row… middle blue shirt.

Next we scored the inside of the tube, first one way and then the next, think crosshatch. The crosshatching encouraged the way the calamari curled when in the hot oil.

The final part was cutting it into long triangles. Mr. Lee then made a flavored marinade… then starched the calamari and then into the hot oil.

He set the calamari aside to drain and moved right into the Spicy Pork Chops. Which were done about the same as the calamari, then he spiced them both up and put them on platters.

The ‘spice’ in the Calamari and Pork Chops was… really simple- garlic, scallion tops and red peppers, but the flavor was awesome!

One of the dishes I was happy to see him show us was Chow Mein with a sauce. One of the secrets was using pre-cooked chicken (I really like veggie style Chow Mein), I will use the pre-cooked chicken in the future with Stir-fry….

The last dish was Kung Pao Chicken!!! When it was finished Mr. Lee said it wasn’t TOO Spicy. If that was mild…. I don’t think I could even contemplate HOT. It wasn’t too hot for me, but I don’t think I would enjoy it much hotter than it was. The heat didn’t last long which was good, but it did make our eyes water while he was cooking it. (The Chow Mein is in the background).

By the time we were finished I was full!!! The food was delicious and I can’t wait to try some of the dishes at home, well ok… the calamari is not on the top of my list- but the Spicy Pork Chops, Kung Pao, Chow Mein and Sweet and Sour will have to be done!!! Oh and we were done a bit before 5!

The next demonstration/class will be cuisine from India!

More later!

Beth

More about the meat….

You know all that meat that I posted about???

It’s history. The freezer was bad and was cycling…. So on Saturday we had to toss 200 pounds of meat into the garbage. In addition, we had to clean the freezer…  The meat on the line, was dry so we also brought that in…. That was a lot of meat!!!! The biltong that we hung, was also brought in. We learned a lot of lessons…. this past week. They doewors, was over spiced and too much fat in it. The biltong on the other hand was under spiced and not enough salt, so it didn’t dry as well and had no flavor.

Of course the good news is (despite the waste) that we have room in the freezer. We actually bought a new one and discovered the defrosted meat at the bottom of the borrowed one when we were transferring to the new one. So now that we have room, DH can plan another hunting trip.

Add to that the chain that raises and lowers the garage door snapped. Again. This is the second time, the last time was about 6 weeks ago. So now we have to park outside. Normally not an issue…. but yesterday we had rain, thunder + lightening and really mushy snow flakes. The rain was really coming down and we have a tile roof…. which means no gutters… and I got soaked just trying to get in the front door!!!!

The weekend before I went out, with a local group, all from the mission. We went to a curio store, a Mexican tortilla and chip maker (REALLY the highlight) and a restaurant, called Carnivore. There are only 2 of these restaurants on the continent, one is just down the road about 30 minutes and the other is in Kenya. They serve all kinds of meat, including game. On our visit, (this is the menu, sorry about the picture… from a cell phone), we had the usual, chicken, beef, lamb and pork… but there was some Kudu (venison) sausages and meatballs, along with a roast; crocodile, zebra and impala. The meal is all inclusive, so for $30 we got a lot of food. The meat is cooked/roasted in a huge open barbeque on long skewers/rods and brought around and either pushed off / or carved right on to your plate. They keep adding meat until you MAKE them stop. I have tried crocodile before, and my opinion hasn’t changed -fatty, rubbery meat …. and I have had kudu roast- but not meatballs or sausage and they were very good. I’d have the meatballs again for sure. Zebra, was DIFFERENT, not something I want to eat regularly, but the impala was delicious. Not at all gamey or stringy or tough! So I told DH he could bring home all the impala he wanted.

and a picture from the hunting trip….

A Groundscraper-Thrush. I can’t believe how many birds here are polka dotted!!!

Well that’s all for now… as usual there will be more later!

Beth