Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Truffles for Your Chakras


Love chocolate but trying to avoid refined sugar? Love truffles but can't eat dairy?

If all goes well, there's going to be a local alternative chocolate truffle that is total indulgence but far healthier than your conventional sweet.

Kathryn Rogers, founder and CEO of Vivacious Dish, is now making Maya Moon Chakra Chocolate Truffles. The truffles are made with honey, coconut milk, and coconut butter, instead of sugar, cream, and butter. The fair trade cocoa is organic and sourced from Peruvian farmers. The coconut milk and butter is also is organic and from a community collaborative in Sri Lanka. The raw clover blossom honey is local, from Mikolich Family Honey.

Rogers is making her truffles out of a 2,400 square-foot bakery in Bay Park. The idea, she said, came from a collaboration a couple of years back at a yoga studio. The owner wanted healthy chocolates without refined sugar and with energy-activating ingredients. Rogers had been experimenting with herbal flavors and from there the idea was born to have truffles that connected with energy centers in the body. She spent the following two years refining the recipe to get the consistency right and perfection in the flavor profiles.

"It took a long time to get ther recipe and consistency down," she said.


So a box of seven truffles will include:

  • Clarifying Coconut (for cosmic consciousness)
  • Third Eye Triple Berry (for tuning into your intuition)
  • Throat Opening Peppermint (for speaking your truth)
  • Heart Warming Cinnamon (for opening to give and receive love)
  • Energizing Bee Pollen (for igniting your inner fire)
  • Luscious Lemon Mango Berry (for activating pleasure sensors)
  • Rooted Raspberry Ginger (for grounding)
Each of the truffles is dusted in one of these ingredients. The flavors are subtle. You'll take a bite and get a lovely hit of coconut or peppermint or berry and then sink into a luscious chocolate. I didn't miss the dairy and loved the depth of flavor the honey provides.


Right now Rogers is in the midst of a Kickstarter to raise $25,000 to launch the project. She's raised just over $13,000 so far and the fundraiser ends on March 6 at midnight. With this fundraiser she hopes to:

1. Order packaging and source organic ingredients to ship the first run of gift boxes to backers.

2. Launch monthly chocolate truffle subscription program, including monthly meditations.

3. Expand into retail locations and natural markets throughout California.

I can't tell you to put money into the Kickstarter. I can tell you that these truffles are sublime and it would be so cool to have a local chocolate that is something you can "indulge in and feel good," as Rogers said.


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Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Air Fryer Shishito Peppers with Togarashi


I remember a time not all that long ago when shishito peppers--those crinkly mild green Japanese chiles--were hard to find in markets and just a little less so as a bar app at hip restaurants. It was a big score back when Susie's Farms was in farmers markets and had them in season.

I now regularly see them--no surprise here--at Japanese markets--but last week I found shishito peppers in a produce display at Sprouts. And bought a bag.


It coincided with my recent purchase of my second air fryer. Air fryer number one was big--too big for my countertop so I had to use it on my stove--and the one time I used it, the house stank from burning plastic. So back it went. Then I read about a much smaller, much less expensive air fryer that would be perfect for my single-person household. The brand is Dash and they have the fryers in multiple cool coolers with a small compact footprint, and both manual and digital displays.

Here's mine (and no, I don't get any payment from either Dash or Amazon):


I used it for the first time over the weekend on, what else, the shishito peppers. Normally, I would toss them in a little oil and let them blister in a hot cast iron skillet. It's not a big undertaking, unless the temperature is soaring in the summer. But cooking them up in the air fryer--essentially using convection heat--was even better because I didn't have to hover over the skillet and deal with peppers so twisted they wouldn't stay where you turned them.


With the air fryer all I had to do was toss them in a little vegetable oil and place them in a single layer in the crisper  basket, which rests in the crisper drawer. The downside? Because it's a small unit I had to do two batches, but it wasn't a big deal since the cooking time is a mere five minutes. This particular air fryer is very intuitive so you press the power button and it immediately shows the temperature, which I turned up from its default 360° to 390° with the + button.


Then you press the timer/temperature button, which displays the default time of 10 minutes and move it to 5 minutes using the - button. Press the start arrow button and it takes care of the rest. In fact, the temperature and timer alternate on the display so you know exactly what is going on as it counts down. And once it hits the one-minute mark, it counts down in seconds.


Midway, pull out the basket and shake, then put it back into the machine. When the timer beeper goes off, check and make sure your shishitos are sufficiently blistered. If so, pull out the basket and use tongs to pull out the shishitos (excess oil may have collected in the bottom of the crisper drawer below the basket so you don't want to risk burning yourself by flipping it over).


Now how do you season your shishitos? If you're like most people you salt the shishitos, then squeeze lemon juice over them. And that's perfectly wonderful. I'm fond of ponzu sauce on them as well. But with this batch I sprinkled coarse sea salt and shichimi togarashi, which is a traditional Japanese seasoning mix.


It has a bite, thanks to chili pepper and szechuan pepper. But it also contains black and white sesame seeds, orange peel, and dried basil. So it offers plenty of zesty flavor, too, and pairs beautifully with the blistered shishitos.












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Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Kitchens for Good Launching "Dinners for Good"


I've been a fan of Kitchens for Good since, well, before it even launched just a couple of years ago.

Never heard of the organization? Well, top of line, it's a San Diego culinary school designed for people 18 and older with barriers to employment—youths aging out of foster care, veterans or people who were formerly incarcerated, for example. The program, which is free to the students, uses curriculum developed by LA Kitchen and DC Central Kitchen, which together have graduated more than 1,500 students over 25 years and have a 90 percent success rate of full-time employment within three months of graduation. Kitchens for Good teaches both fundamental culinary skills, including knife skills, baking, fish fabrication and plating, and what founder and president Chuck Samuelson called “soft skills,” like anger management, résumé writing and professional social interaction. Students graduate the program with ServSafe certification and job placement assistance.


And it's graduated hundreds of students so far. But Kitchens for Good is more than just a culinary school. It's an advocate and example of reducing food waste. It provides nutritious meals for families in need. And it funds jobs and supports local farmers.

Any nonprofit that is juggling this many projects needs financial support. And Kitchens for Good used the collective smart noggins and came up with a new fundraising program: Dinners for Good.

Dinners for Good is a combination chef demo and tasting series sponsored by Catalina Offshore Products and Specialty Produce (yes, the same folks who have brought us Collaboration Kitchen). It  will be hosted by Catalina Offshore Products' Tommy Gomes. Each event will consist of a five-course tasting menu with paired drinks--all prepared by some of San Diego's best chefs during a live cooking demonstration.

Tommy Gomes

The kickoff event will be held on March 24 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Kitchens for Good. It will feature Gomes, with Hanis Cavin of Carnitas Snack Shack and "Sam the Cooking Guy" Zien of Not Not Tacos.

Hanis Cavin


Here's the menu:
1st course:
Shaved squash / roasted cherry tomato / almond
tapenade / manchego / sherry vinaigrette

2nd course:
Smoked pork stuffed sweet-pepper / corn puree / corn-
pork belly sauté / chive oil

3rd course:
Roasted black cod / mussels / sweet garlic / toasted
focaccia / mirepoix / black pepper butter

4th course:
Seared NY strip / crisp potato cake /
mushroom-onion-lardon hash / port reduction

5th course:
Mini ice cream cookie sandwiches /
white chocolate dipped

Sam "the Cooking Guy" Zien
On April 28, the next Dinners for Good program will feature Gomes with Matt Gordon of Urban Solace and Solace & the Moonlight Lounge and Sam Zien.

On June 30, the program will feature Karen Barnett of Small Bar, Logan Mitchell of Cellar Door, and Coral Fodor of Garden Kitchen.

Tickets for Dinners for Good are $115--remember, the proceeds from the events support Kitchens for Good and their culinary job training program!

Kitchens for Good is located at 404 Euclid Avenue Suite 102, San Diego 92114.




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Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Miso Butter Turkey Thigh


Long before I knew the term "compound butter"--and I mean really long before--I was enjoying a version of compound butter at my summer camp. At breakfast some of us got into the habit of mixing soft butter with brown sugar, both of which were in bowls on the long dining hall tables for pancakes or French toast or oatmeal, and eating this mixture with a spoon. Yeah, it was as weirdly wonderful as it sounds, especially to a preteen away from home whose parents weren't around to put a stop to it.

So imagine how happy my taste buds were when I discovered years later that you could blend soft butter with all kinds of ingredients and spread it on really great bread or toast.

Or cook with it.

Compound butters are truly a gift to a home cook with some vegetables, or chicken, or fish--and odds and ends of ingredients. The other night I decided to make myself a roasted turkey thigh but I'd also just cleaned my refrigerator and realized I had a container of miso hidden in the back of a shelf. My usual go to with miso is to make a marinade or glaze for an oily fish like salmon or black cod. But I thought miso could work with turkey and decided to pair it with butter.

And several other ingredients.

I riffled around my pantry and pulled out honey and rice vinegar. Back in the fridge I got out soy sauce. Garlic and ginger made sense--and I remembered my ginger garlic bombs in the freezer (a great hack from Bon Appétit) and got one out to defrost.


After I let the butter soften and the ginger garlic bomb defrost, I mashed the butter and miso and started adding the rest: a teaspoon each of honey and rice vinegar, half a teaspoon of soy sauce, and the ginger garlic bomb. I wanted to relive my youth and just eat the creamy mixture with a spoon; it was salty and sweet with a kick from the vinegar and a little spice from the garlic and ginger.


Instead I smeared it over the large turkey thigh, but once I did that I still had some left over. I pulled out an eggplant from the refrigerator and cut some slices, then smeared the slices with the miso butter. They all went into the oven to roast and within about 10 minutes my entire house already smelled dreamy.


Within 45 minutes I had a beautifully browned turkey thigh and perhaps the most delicious slices of eggplant I'd ever eaten. The miso butter had infused the eggplant with all those flavors and made each slice melt in my mouth.


This is one of those concoctions I'd make again in a heartbeat not just for the turkey and the eggplant, but to smear on fish or chicken or winter squash slices. I'd toss it in pasta or hot whole grains.

Or just use a spoon and eat it.



Miso Butter Turkey Thigh
Serves 1 or 2, depending on the size of the turkey thigh
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons miso
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon plain rice vinegar
1 ginger garlic bomb
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1 large turkey thigh

Directions
Mash together all the ingredients except the turkey to make the compound butter.

Spread as much of the compound butter as you need all over the turkey thigh. If you have any left over, refrigerate it or spread over vegetables.

Preheat oven to 375°. Place the turkey thigh and any vegetables you plan to roast in a roasting pan and cook for 45 minutes or until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 170° and 175°. Remove from oven. Let rest about 10 minutes, then slice the turkey.


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