Get yer starters ready

Sourdough starter update. So I decided to scrap all the instructions given to me by the BG&H cookbook. I'm now going by tips I've read and tips my brother has told me. I will now share with you so you too can also make your house smell yeasty delicious.

You can find my measurement for my starter over here, but I've come to realize that it really is just equal parts water and flour. I used yeast as you can see but I found out that hardcore bread makers don't like that. If you're just going to do one cup of both water and flour and you do wish to add yeast, a little under a teaspoon of yeast + 1 tsp of sugar and honey would give you the same effect.

I've been feeding my starter everyday. Here is the common bread making rule for feeding:

-remove half or one cup of the starter and then place equal amounts of warm water and flour.

-don't use tap water, use filtered water.

-just stir in the "hooch" or the alcohol when you do want but if your starter is too wet, you can remove some of it.

Now I've known that San Francisco and its surrounding areas have pretty good yeast quality, but I didn't think it would reach as far as where I am. My starter started bubbling within a couple days. Even my second batch of yeast free starter is starting to get crazy.

Anyway, let's talk about my batch today. First take one cup of starter and put it in a bowl with one cup of bread flour and one cup of warm water. Mix together and cover with a towel. This is going to be your "sponge." Now since my area has a good amount of yeast, mine bubbled within two hours. It all depends on your area, but you know your sponge is ready when it has formed bubbles, it ranges between 2-12 hours as I've heard.

Once your sponge is done, place it in your mixer or bread maker machine and combine it with 4 tsp of sugar, 2 tsp olive oil or butter and 2 tsp of salt. Once all that is mix, put one cup at a time of bread flour. Between 2-4 cups. As long as your dough looks elastic, not too dry and not too wet.

Put in a glass and greased bowl and cover with a towel. Let it proof in a warm place until it doubles in size. You can turn on your oven at 350F for a minute then turn it off right away and place your bowl in there.
Once proofed, the fun part, punch it in the middle.

Then knead it into a log shape.

Divide in half.

My dough made enough for two rolls. If you'd like, slice them on top. I did since I think it looks pretty, I wish I sliced larger though. Cover with a towel again and proof it doubles in size.

Bake at 375F for 30-35 minutes or until it sounds hollow in the middle. Let cool on a rack or towel before slicing. 

Isn't it beautiful? Oh it smells just like home.

Ingredients
Sponge:
1 cup water
1 cup bread flour
1 cup starter

Bread
2 cups starter
4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp oil
2 tsp salt
2-4 cups of flour

Bake at 375F for 30-35 minutes or until it sounds hollow.

This is my other starter I'm cultivating. I'm hoping it works since this is yeast free and I'm relying to natural yeast. It has made a home by my window sill.

Smells like there is some fermentation going on.

I'm in a bread kick. I blame my brother for talking me into this. He's going to culinary school right now and he just finished his bread class. Between the two of us, I'm the pastry maker and he's the bread maker. He's been encouraging me though to make a starter and make brioche. He insists it will change my life, probably because I insist to him that crumb coating his cakes will change his life. It's true though, a loaf of brioche costs $4-5 and that's half the size of a regular loaf. I'm not big on making bread because I think it's cheaper to buy a loaf at the store, but there are some that are worth making. I was able to make 2 loaves of brioche today and I calculated that I only spent a little over $2 and that's using organic milk, eggs and natural unbleached flour. That's a savings of $6-10 plus gas money savings.

This was a success. Even my son who would not eat a slice of bread or sandwich begged and tried to steal a few slices of this. The recipe I used was Anne Willan's recipe in her book "The Country Cooking of France." Husband got me the book for my birthday and I haven't really done any recipes on it. I love that book and you should check it out. She has beautiful description of how the countryside of France is and she just takes you over there. She helped me out with a Coq au Riesling recipe. I didn't follow hers completely mostly because I made mine too difficult, but I do recommend her method too. 

I was a little too ambitious today and made sourdough starter. Here's the recipe I used:

2 1/2 C all-purpose flour

2 1/2 C warm water

2 1/4 tsp or 1 packet yeast

2 tsp sugar or honey (I used organic wildflower honey)

(Recipe from the BH&G Baking book)

Mix the yeast with half a cup of water, then when dissolved, mix in the rest of the ingredients. Now it's my first time making a sourdough starter. I think I've made myself nervous about this because I'm obsessing about the best way to make starter. I read that I'm not supposed to stir it with anything metal, well ha, I stirred mine with a spoon. Also I don't know how much it will be affected by the fact that I put it in a container that was too small so when it made the "sponge" it got stuck to my kitchen towels. All I know that if this becomes any kind of pinkish or orange color, it's time to dump it. I might obsess over this more than I did with macarons.

It looks like it's fermenting well and it has created huge bubbles and "hooch" is in and around the starter. I'm going to give it 5-10 days to ferment, stirring it every 2-3 days. I'm using a wooden spoon when I stir it again. I hope to God this makes good sourdough. I guess the worst that can happen is I make a new batch.  This is nerve wracking and I'm testing out my first bread either Thursday this week or Wednesday after. Part of me regrets ever making a starter, another part of me is very excited to make garlic sour dough bread. I can't believe a bowl of flour and yeast is giving me this much anxiety. 

November recap

It feels as if November went by so quickly. Did it really just pass by like that? It was an eventful month for us. This year was the first time I actually got up early to do black Friday shopping. Last time I did, I was pregnant and went to the mall at 8am and only got out with clothes for Elliott since we just found out we were having a boy. This year, B and I got up at 3:30, mustered up some courage to get out of the house 5:30am and kicked ass. As my husband said "all that before coffee!"

This month we spent time with family.

Hung out with some good friends

Accomplished goals (in the rain)

Got our Holiday pictures taken by JG and they turned out Beautiful!

Discovered new favorites

Eat till we couldn't eat anymore

Collected a busted lip (or 2) then proceeded to slather strawberry lipgloss all over the face.

Thanks November. You were such a fun month. I can't wait to see you again next year. You're one of my favorite months, right after October. Haha, get it? Corny? Eh, I tried.

Cotton soft Japanese cheesecake

Two years ago I tried a recipe I found on Japanese cotton soft cheesecake and well, it was a disaster. It was like an eggier version of an omelet only sweet. Yes, that bad. I eluded the idea of making it, I was convinced that Asian desserts are just not my thing. No, seriously, I don't think I'm very good with them. There are a few I can proudly say I'm great at, but for the most part, well, I suck at them. I can conquer a good number of European and American desserts easy, but not Asian. I would say it's probably the measurement. Grams to ounces to the laziness of just buying a dang scale all equate to that.

Tonight though, while perusing around my kitchen trying to decide whether to make donuts or brioche, I discovered in my refrigerator what appeared to be a box of cream cheese slightly opened. It was probably my dad that was over for the weekend. I love him to death, but he ignored my spreadable cream cheese and went for the what's meant for pumpkin cheesecake cream cheese. I needed to use it, one, because I'd hate to procrastinate on that cheesecake plan, two, I can't stand looking at that box. I was all pumpkined out from Thanksgiving so I made cotton soft cheesecake. I'm not particularly a huge cheesecake fan anyway, unless it's blueberry, or mango, or blueberry mango.

I used a cake pan for this seeing as I'm still traumatized by the last experience, but I only filled it halfway. Last time I used a spring form pan which was not properly sealed. Duh, it's not a regular cake, I should have filled it all the way. I ended up using 2 pans but it's ok. I had a chance to brutalize the other one by using pastry cutters and stencils on it.

Now I'm not yet going to publish the recipe for this because I wasn't too happy. I looked at a few recipes and none of them were sweet enough. Nothing like the ones I've had from the Asian markets. It's good, but needs more sugar. I'm glad though I added vanilla this time around unlike last time. I was afraid to add more sugar though because I didn't want the batter to fall. Seeing as it's a bit of a forgiving mix, I'll sweeten it up a bit next time.

I love it though, it wasn't eggy like my first attempt. I'm going to give it another go sometime this week or next. I have matcha green tea coming and maybe I'll make a green tea version of it. 

For now, I'll enjoy this. I'm actually sort of glad I put my batter in 2 pans because I know no one else would share a Hello Kitty stenciled cheesecake with me in this house. 

Consumed by Thanksgiving week

I've been super busy as the rest of America this week. I started Thanksgiving week with a lumpia contest where I lost. Whomp, whomp. Oh well, maybe next year I'll try again. It was super cool to be in a TV Station though. I've never been on TV (well, not a TV studio. I've been on the news before. No, not because I committed a crime! My opinions apparently needed to be heard by the bay area).

I'm going to blame my loss on the fact that Walmart didn't carry any cilantro the day before and I had to use dried cilantro. I never use dried herbs unless it's bay leaves or oregano. Oh, also, I didn't bring sauce since they said no sauce necessary, I'll bring sauce next time. Lesson learned. Thank you again though to all the people that supported me. You guys are the best group of friends a girl can have.

Well, these were the lumpias I used for the competition. I entered a bit too cocky for my own good, but this has been a faithful recipe for me. We'll try again and hopefully reap better results next time.

For now, I'm doing my favorite winter activity which is knitting and crocheting. I've created some ear warmers as a Christmas gift for a friend's daughters and I'm making a cowl neck scarf inspired by a $60 Gap scarf. There was no way anyone can make me pay for that much money for $6 worth of yarn. 

Cooking will be put on hold for now as I have a ton of Thanksgiving leftovers to go through. Also, it's that time of the year that we will be eating out of the pantry. I have apparently been TOO prepared for winter time. I am of course in a baking kick. I've got some ideas and hoping to get great treats. I'm going to have to run again after this bake-a-thon.

Persimmon cookies

Persimmons are one of those fruits that I would tolerate if present, but not exactly crave it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I will eat them. I usually get them from my parents that get the Costco boxes of them, but I'm never one to just grab a few of them on my own. My friend gave me some and I've been wanting to try out persimmon cookies. I heard they make a pumpkin like type of cookie. I researched several recipes, couldn't really find one I fancy too much so I made these. They didn't come out as flat as I wanted them to be, but they came out very cake like. It might be because my persimmons weren't super ripe yet. I'm going to try this same recipe when my persimmons fully ripen. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup persimmon puree (I just pulsed the persimmons in the food processor. It took 2 persimmons to achieve the measurement)
2 cups of flour
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup zante currants*

*I like currants a lot, but if you only have raisins, it's ok too.

Preheat the over 350F

Cream the sugar and butter together in the mixer, add the egg and once combined, add the persimmon puree and vanilla. put in all the dry ingredients except for the nuts and raisins (and currants if you want). Just mix until the flour is combined with the wet ingredients, but stopping midway to scrape the bottom. Once the dough is mixed, put the rest of the ingredients and mix again till all the nuts and fruit are incorporated.

On a lightly greased cookie sheet, spoon the dough in rounds and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a cooling rack.

I survived my first 5k

Back in the summer I decided I was going to start running. I was never a good runner before, but I needed to do something about my post-pregnancy body.  The most I've done since picking up the routine is run for 31 minutes straight but I've only reached about 2.2-2.4 miles with that time. I average about a 14 minute mile, not bad, but not great either. I ran last Monday and for 38 minutes, I only did 2.8 miles. I had this 5k run today and well, 5k is 3.1 miles so I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to make it under my 40 minute goal. My plan was to run about two-thirds of it then run/walk/run the rest of it. Basically, by the time I reach my usual 25-30 minute straight run, I'll take it a little easy. I didn't plan for this weather though.

Yes, it was raining and it was 46 degrees out.

 My wonderful friend Lisa tried her best to get me to run the whole time, but the rain, was weighing my poor choice of an outfit down and I can feel my lungs piercing in pain. She was such a trooper and have been my partner with running. I really do wish I ran the whole thing with her. When I reached the end all I heard was 53! 53 minutes? Seriously? I just about felt like a failure until the girl that was smart enough to bring a watch with her told me it was 37.50. So 37.50 for my 5k meant I just shaved off a minute and added .3 miles on my run.

There were things I learned in my first 5k:

-I need to invest in those spandex running outfits.
-The windbreaker pants and fleece jacket are a bad idea for a run that's going to be in the rain. Well, probably any run.
-I need a reliable watch.
-There has to be a way I can figure out how to breathe better while running so I don't cramp faster.
-I want to be the girl in the hot pink spandex outfit running pretty next time.

The gobble wobbles did great, we all finished  between 32-38 minutes (I was last, ha!). I want to do another one and hopefully, by that time I can run all 5k. I can walk away from this knowing I finished under my goal and sticking to my plan actually worked.

3/4 of our Gobble Wobbles team. 

I'm semi-capable of using photoshop! yay!

I had to finish a photo session I had with my friend today. I needed to take birthday pictures to put in the invitation and thank you cards. I took this as an opportunity to finally learn how to use photo shop. I have a confession to make; even though I've had ps 7.0 installed in my computer since I've had my camera, I have barely grazed over it. I feel like my brain just doesn't connect with it. I've been post-processing my photos via picasa. *covers face in shame*

Today though I finally figured out how to use some actions, apply some things I do know and I think I did pretty ok for what I knew and for how much time I wasted unzipping files. Yes, I'm also zip file challenged. Darn computers are getting too complicated nowadays.

One of Derick's photos for his portraits.

Mr. Bert- taken back in March. I took the photo to use as an entry for a photo contest. I re-enhanced it and gave it a little bit of a retro feel. It makes him look like he's gentle. Don't be fooled, please. 

My Elliott, The love of my life. This photo was also posted on another entry the other day. It felt like it needed something else, although, I'll gloat and say that my son's smile is just to die for. I melt. 

I know, Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet

It's actually pretty late for me to wait till November to put up a Christmas tree. Back when I was a kid, we always put up the tree once October starts. That's when the Christmas season starts in the Philippines. We LOVE Christmas there. Part of the reason too was because we don't have Thanksgiving. People that do procrastinate wait till after all soul's day, November 2nd, to put up their tree. This is a sort of compromise for me to put up the tree one week before Thanksgiving.

We wanted to do a real tree this year, but our male cat, Bert, is a sort of knucklehead. He can't help but attack any kind of topiary or potted plant. I had envisioned a cat stuck in the middle of the tree hanging on to dear life. We pulled out our pre-lit tree instead and set it up. It's for the cat's sake.

I try to do a different color scheme every year, but we have our traditional ornaments too. I can't decorate a tree to save my life, but I try. I kind of just slapped them all there. I bought a new star to top the tree this year. I got  a capiz shell star at Target for $20. That was my biggest splurge. I reused my crystal snowflakes my Mom and I have accumulated over the years. We go to Macy's after Christmas and buy whatever they have left at a super discounted price. The only other addition I had was the garland, that's obviously not ample enough for $6.99, and the round plastic ornaments for a pack of 50 for $15.99, both also from Target. I might go back to the store again to get another one of those garlands to add some more oomph to my tree. 

This year, I've been seasonally changing my mantle in the living room. I don't overdo it and I use very inexpensive fixes to do it. I probably only use about $20 or under to make them over. This is what it looked like for Halloween.

And now like this for the Holidays. The only addition I added to this was the "Merry Christmas" sign from that cost $3 and the bow, $1, both from Target (are you sensing a pattern here?). I reused everything else. It was just a matter of looking around the house. See, that wasn't even $20. That was a splurge of $4 for my winter mantle.

The wreath was easy to make. Just a book that's been weathered enough, any type of sturdy and plain wreath, and hot glue to put the whole thing together. I've seen several styles, I've been obsessing on designs @ The Inspired Room.

The books were antique finds of mine from an Antique mall, along with the chiropodist sign. Yeah, chiropody is the last thing you think about when someone says Christmas, but it matched, and well, the sign is funny. Everything else was what I dug out of my Christmas bin.

I bought those apothecary jars when we first bought our house. They were empty before, then I placed those pumpkins and Indian corn in them. I like seeing them filled now. I think I might have bought them at Marshall's. I just filled them with ornaments that I didn't feel like putting up or some of the plastic ornaments we just bought weren't pierced well enough for an ornament hook so I just tossed them in there. The Noel sign is a hand me down from my mom. It's the oddest thing ever, it's bristles with pearls. If you look at my tree close enough, I have snowflake ornaments made out of the same material.

So now I blog here, enjoying the warmth of the house and the glimmer of the tree. It's Christmas in my house already and I love it. It makes life easier and happier and I feel like there's nothing that can weigh me down. I probably have a couple more projects to do. See, isn't it great to decorate early? There's room for a lot of projects. 

What's so bad about SPAM anyway?

It's old news, I know, but I was irked how carnival cruise lines denied the fact that their passengers were served SPAM. I get how it can be gross out of the can, but why deny it? I'm in love with spam, but it's probably mostly because I'm Filipino and I grew up on this stuff. Let's just put it this way, SPAM is as common a site to Asians as pickles are to hamburgers for Americans. We love this stuff, and we know the majority of mainland America is boggled by it. Hawaii loves it. I'm still boggled by jars and jars of gigantic pickled cucumber, so I understand why it's so freaky.

Spam is so versatile though, there's spamburgers, grilled cheese and spam, and the classic fried rice, eggs and spam. I'm usually a particularly healthy shopper going with mostly organic, but I do cave. I cave for 3 things, longganisa (which are Filipino breakfast sausages), red hotdogs (again, an oddity of Filipino grocery items) and SPAM.

Since part of me was offended by the Carnival Spamcation denial, I had to celebrate the deliciousness that shoulder pork ham is. Also, I had Chinese steam noodles (which highly resemble Japanese soba noodles, which could be the same) that needed to be used. I made Spam Saimin. It's also a quick lunch and I needed to feed the hungry boys. I was crocheting the whole day and lost track of time. Quickie lunches are the best.

If you've never tried Spam, you might want to give this a try. What's the worst that can happen? Ha, yeah, you just ate shoulder pork ham. It's good and you know it, don't even deny it. 

Spam Saimin

4 cups of chicken stock

2 cups of water

1 package Chinese steamed noodles or Japanese soba noodles

1 tsp grated ginger

2-3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp fish sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1 romaine lettuce chopped into small pieces

3 spring onions, bias-sliced

1 can of spam lite (I like it better because it's not as overpowering as regular spam, unless you like all the sodium goodness. I like to believe I'm bettering myself), chopped into 1/2 inch cubes

*other additions can be scrambled eggs, tofu, chicken, mushrooms, peas (it's really a find what's in the pantry meal)

In a pot, combine stock, water, noodles, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper and lettuce. Bring pot to boiling stage or just until the noodles are tender. Taste to see if it's salty enough, either add more soy sauce, fish sauce or salt. Don't make it too salty though because remember, Spam is salty on its own.

In another pan, preferably a non-stick pan, brown the spam. You'll see a golden brown glisten to it. That's when you know it's done.

To assemble, place noodles and broth in a bowl. Top it with fried spam and spring onions. Then you'll realize you just fell in-love with Spam. You'll either love me or hate me for this.

*I dedicate this entry to my friend Lisa, whom I have both disturbed and amazed by the foreign substance, Spam.

When weekends are weekdays

My days are over the place. I have to constantly check my celphone to see what day it is. I'm glad this guy is around to keep me company whenever we're having one of those stagnant days.

It was a really beautiful fall day in California yesterday.

We have no cloud in sight, but the winds are all over the place. My house would fly away if I extended my awning right now.

So, what day is it today? I know what kind though; hot, humid and windy. 

Pulido Family Photos

I took one of my friend's family portraits today. I of course wish I could have done better. For the time we had, and with the allergies their cutie son had for the day, I ended up with 18 gorgeous photos. Their son is also one of my son's best friends, so this family is like family to us too.

 I'm beefing up my portfolio that's why I've been taking photos of my friends' families. This is my second one in the past 2 months and I'm learning techniques I like and mistakes I want to avoid. I'm still debating if the photography thing is something I want to do professionally. It's definitely something I like as a hobby. My cheap canon xs works great for me and this hobby and I'm glad I have friends that let me take their pictures. Here are some of my favorites from this set.

Bistek (thin sliced beef steak)

I finally got my Coq Au Riesling marinating. That will be fore tomorrow though. Tonight, I only had time to make bistek for husband's lunch. I don't make it often, mostly because I think my mom does it way better than I do. I bought a bottle of soy sauce with kalamansi (a type of citrus) mixed in it already. I wish I only used half of the amount I did and used mostly regular soy sauce. 

Now I have my rules with soy sauce. I do buy the kikkoman, or lately, I've been getting the Tamari brand. I only use those for my other Asian cuisines. For Filipino cooking, I stick to the the Datu Puti or Silver Swan brands. They're easy to find, I've seen them in commissaries and even regular grocery stores. It's essential to Filipino food, the soy sauce just tastes a lot different than the wider brands. 

This is a dish best served with rice. The soy makes it particularly very salty, but then you'll only need bits of meat to make the rice super delicious. I used thinly sliced chuck beef. I bought it pre-sliced, but it's not hard to slice it thin either on your own. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup water

2/3 cup soy sauce (datu puti or silver swan brand)

juice of half a lemon

zest of half a lemon

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp pepper

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 large red onion, sliced in half, then sliced thinly

1 tbsp basil, chopped

1/2 lb to 1 lb chuck steak, sliced thinly

Combine all ingredients, except for the onion and basil, in a container. I used a ziploc bag. Marinate the meat in the marinade for 4 hours or overnight. Once ready to cook, put about 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a pan. Drain the marinade from the meat, reserving the liquid. On medium high heat, toss the meat and half of the onions in the pan.

Saute the meat and onions. When the meat is getting browner and the onions are tender, pour half of the marinade in. Let the liquid reduce to half, then place the rest of the marinade. Let it reduce almost halt the original amount again. Tadah! Bistek is done. Place it in your ideal serving dish.

I have a basil plant I planted from a bunch I bought at a farmer's market. It's now a happy plant in my kitchen. I added some of it. It's not a traditional Filipino cuisine ingredient but the soy sauce color drives me crazy. It's so bland and brown. Plus, I like adding herbs to everything. They do make food fresher, plus, my basil needed a little trimming.

I finely chopped the basil and I sliced the rest of that onion paper thin.



Top the bistek with the basil and sliced onions.

Serve it with rice. Please serve it with rice! It's not the same without it.

Now this is a bit of a salty dish. A little bit goes a long way, but MMM, white rice is very happy to know bistek as a friend. It's a friendship you don't want to miss out on.