Flinsen (Or Pflinzen)

July 10, 2012February 4, 2017

In honor of Father’s Day, Jonah and I made flinsen. Whenever we see Jonah’s dad, Randy, he makes us flinsen. Randy will stand at the stove and make these pancakes, handing them out one at a time, hot off the stove, until everyone is full. Then he will sit down and eat. What a caring dad, right? I love Randy. (Another awesome thing about Randy is that he makes cheese, and good cheese at that!)

Flinsen

Ingredients

1 egg per person
1/2 cup flour per person
milk

Toppings for serving: yogurt, maple syrup, jam, sliced fruit, butter, and cinnamon sugar are all good options!

Instructions

Flinsen are easy. Put one egg per person that will be eating in a bowl and scramble them. Now add 1/2 cup flour per person. Now add milk until it’s the right consistency. “Wow, Annie,” you must be thinking, “That’s a great instruction.” I know, I know. You want it to be like really thin pancake batter. Think crepes.

Throw a slab of butter into a 10 inch fry pan over medium heat. Spread the melty butter around, and take about a 1/4 cup measure full of batter, and dump it into the pan. Here’s the tricky part. While you’re pouring the batter into the pan, you need to pick up the pan and swirl it around so the batter makes a thin layer over the whole pan. It may take a couple tries to get the hang of it, but you can do it! Pile them on a plate (or a pan and put them in a low oven to keep them warm).

Now comes filling time. You can put whatever you want inside, kind of like a crepe. Jonah’s got me hooked on greek yogurt and a drizzle of syrup. Jam is also good, sliced fruit is too, and even plain ol’ butter and cinnamon sugar. Enjoy!

Rhubarb Curd Shortbread

July 5, 2012February 4, 2017

Ok you guys. It has been too long. Again. But I promise I have good reasons: 3 jobs, a show (The Sound of Music!), and sunlight. I’ve been nannying part time, working at the office part time, and doing social media an hour a day, then going to many many hours of rehearsal in a suburb or Portland. So no time for cooking OR blogging. But here I am, backstage at the show, and I decided, I HAVE to do this.

You’ll have to excuse the iPhone photos for the next couple of posts (or Instagram, whichever I had the energy to use). Along with leaving my 8×8 pan at the cabin in the woods (which it turns out I needed for this recipe), I also left my camera charger… so my camera was sitting, dead and useless, for quite a while. So I know the pictures aren’t as good of quality as usual, but just bear with me until I get my camera up and running again!

I found this recipe on Food52 while looking for shortbread recipes to eat with a fruit compote. I love rhubarb, and am always looking for different and unique recipes, so I thought this would be a fun one to try. Warning: it is labor intensive and dish heavy. Read through this recipe all the way before you start. Please. You’ve been warned. Here’s what you’ll need:

Rhubarb Curd Shortbread

Ingredients

Rhubarb Curd

3/4 lb rhubarb (about 6 stalks)
4 Tbl water
1/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup plus 1/8 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp lemon juice
3 Tbl butter, cut into chunks

Shortbread Crust

12 Tbl butter, cut into chunks
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground clove

Instructions

Rhubarb Curd

First, cut the rhubarb into one inch pieces. Heat the rhubarb, 1/4 cup of sugar, and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook it until the rhubarb is falling apart and there are no whole pieces left (you can help it along by mashing with your mixing tool, a wooden spoon works great). It you have an immersion blender or a regular blender, puree the mixture. If you don’t have either of those, push the mixture through a strainer. I advise one of the blender methods.

If you have a double boiler, put a couple inches of water in the pot of it and set it over medium heat. If you don’t have a double boiler, find two pots that are about the same diameter, so that one can be set atop the other without going into whatever is in the bottom pot. Put egg yolks, butter, remaining sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in the top pot and set over the simmering bottom pot, and whisk to combine. When the sugar dissolves, add the rhubarb puree by the spoonful (to temper the eggs). When all the rhubarb is added, put the pot over the boil again. Stir for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is warm and slightly thickened, then remove from heat. Press the mixture through a strainer – this is an important step! It’ll give the curd a smooth texture.

Shortbread Crust

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while you make the shortbread: blend all the ingredients for the shortbread in a stand mixer or food processor. Now, the recipe says to wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate it, but I didn’t and it was just fine. The recipe also says to roll it into an 8X8 square and put it into an 8X8 pan… but I just dumped the dough into a pie dish and pushed it outwards until it was spread out. Bake the shortbread for 30 minutes until golden brown. Set to cool on a rack.

Use a spatula to spread the curd evenly over the shortbread. Put it in the oven for another 10 minutes, remove, and allow to cool on a rack. Then refrigerate for another 20 minutes. It’ll be nice and firm enough to slice cleanly. Enjoy! (If you want to wait another couple minutes, you can dust with powdered sugar… I couldn’t wait.)

Fried Fish and Summer Corn Salad

June 25, 2012October 9, 2017

Jonah here. I haven’t posted recently, but I was proud of this dinner I made a few weeks back, so I had to get on this blog and tell you all about it!

Recently, it was a nice warm summer day and I wanted to make something summery. So I modified two recipes from Food52.com, a great site Annie introduced me to: Fried spiced fish and summer corn salad. You can find the recipes that this meal is based on here and here.

Fried Fish and Summer Corn Salad

Ingredients

Panko Fried Fish

4 fillets of fish (I used cod)
2 Tbl Chilli powder
1 Tbl Turmeric
1 tsp Black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp Lime juice
Salt to taste
Panko bread crumbs to coat
Oil for shallow frying

Summer Corn Salad

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 jalepeño pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
2 handfuls fresh green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 ears fresh corn on the cob, kernals removed
1 handful fresh basil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
3 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt, to taste

Instructions

Panko Fried Fish

Clean, cut and wash the fish. Prepare a thick paste with all remaining ingredients (besides the panko and oil) and apply it to the fish. Allow it to marinate while you prepare the corn salad, instructions below. When you’re ready to cook the fish, coat it with Panko, shallow fry in oil and remove to a paper towel-lined plate.

Summer Corn Salad

Heat olive oil in saute pan to hot, but not smoking. Add in shallots and peppers and a pinch of sea salt. Saute 2-3 mins over medium heat, until shallots start to get translucent. Add green beans and saute another 5-8 minutes, until everything is tender, but still has a crunch. Add corn kernels and saute 2-3 minutes. Take pan off of heat, tear basil into large pieces and stir to combine. Heat will wilt basil, but not over cook.

In a separate bowl, combine lemon juice, maple syrup, mustard and 3 tablespoons olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, mixing. Pour over corn and pepper mixture. Toss to coat all the veggies.

Put everything together in on a plate, and enjoy! Happy summer!

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Caprese Salad

June 19, 2012February 2, 2017

In the summer, when the heirloom tomatoes are big and soft and perfect, there is perhaps nothing better to do with them than to make a caprese salad. For the past two summers, my little sister has worked at a tomato stand at the farmer’s markets in the greater Seattle area. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, when she comes to visit she brings me the most beautifully colored, gigantic, perfectly ripe tomatoes.

The other day after work, I went to the grocery store to grab some beer (it had been a long day – and I’m currently in love with Deschutes Brewery Chainbreaker White IPA… if you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend it). At the store, I saw this giant pile of tomatoes and almost bought some until I remembered I had my own even better ones at home. So I bought the freshest mozzarella I could (my local grocery store doesn’t carry mozzarella de bufala, but if yours does, that’s what you want), brought it home, sliced up the tomatoes and cheese, drizzled a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and voila: the most wonderful summer salad, great for an appetizer or snack. (If you feel like buying basil OR you’re one of the lucky ones who has it growing in their garden, throw a leaf on top).

Food Cart review: Fuego de Lotus

June 15, 2012December 28, 2016

UPDATE: These delicious are now served at brick and mortar restaurant Teote Areperia in SE Portland!

I was contemplating calling this a restaurant review, but it’s not quite a restaurant, so I figured I’d call it what it is. A friend of mine, Erica, introduced me to this Venezuelan food cart on SE Division and… 32nd? It’s called Fuego de Lotus. It’s amazing.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind.

Portland is largely known for its food scene and, in particular, its food carts. Now I have found a few food carts that I like, but I am never as in awe of some carts as some people seem to be. Granted, I haven’t visited many of the famed ones (except the Frying Scotsman, which is wonderful for UK style fish and chips), but I just never found that they were completely outstanding. Until Erica took me to Fuego de Lotus.

The first time I went to the food cart pod on Division, I got mac n’ cheese from some other cart. It was good. But I did not know what I was missing. One day, between a nice long climb and rehearsal for a play we were both working on, Erica and I stopped by Fuego de Lotus to grab some food to go. Her favorite is the green chili chicken arepa, so that’s what I got. Arepas are basically the equivalent of fried english muffins made with corn flour. Perfectly crispy on the outside and flavorful, they make a great base for the deliciously saucy chicken and cabbage. Yum-0. So it became tradition: after climbing on weekends, we would go get arepas.

Well last week, I decided to branch out. I had stuck with the green chili chicken because it was so damn good, I didn’t feel the need to try anything else. I hadn’t even looked at the other items on the menu… ridiculous, I know. But the food cart is also dangerously close to my office, and so the other day, Jonah and I went to get arepas for lunch. I tried the chorizo with fried plantains: really tasty, if a little spicy for me; Jonah tried the pork belly with red chili maple sauce: bacon-y and delicious and perfectly spicy. So now I’m even more obsessed. I’ve gone a few times for lunch since I’ve realized how close it is, and I can already see that the proximity is going to be a problem.

If you’re in Portland, looking for a taste of the food cart culture, this would be my top suggestion. Delicious food, wonderful service (the guy who is always working when I go is super nice), and a nice little pod filled with tables to sit and enjoy (plus covered tables in case the Portland weather persists).