Towse: views from the hill

January 16, 2010

[RECIPE] Chicken mole for dinner last night

Filed under: life,recipes — Towse @ 1:35 am

Last night we used up the last few pieces of chicken from the rotisserie chicken I bought for the book club meeting here 04 January. That meeting was canceled because of issues with the sewer — alas — and we found ourselves with a $5 rotisserie chicken from Costco for the second time in our lives.

(Why don’t we buy rotisserie chickens more often? Is it because I think, “I can cook my own chicken! Why do I need to buy a pre-cooked chicken from Costco?” That Monday was a day of upsets, though, with several issues precluding a home-cooked meal for the bookers. Then, after all that, the sewer problems. …)

We had chicken legs &c. on Monday, January 4, for dinner. Salad. Garlic bread. Chicken again the following night or maybe two.

A week later, this Monday, we took the solid pieces of chicken off the carcass and saved them and threw the carcass and the wings into a pot and made chicken vegetable soup w/ spaetzle. Finally, we’re coming to the end of the chicken and have had … eight-plus meals out of it? Amazing. (And despite me eating chicken soup w/ spaetzle for breakfast twice since the 11th, we =still= have another serving of soup and spaetzle left as well. …)

I made mole sauce last night and popped the cooked pieces of chicken leftover from the 11th in the sauce and let them simmer a bit before serving. Delish.

Chicken Mole recipe (a snap, a cinch, easy-peasy)
============

Large heavy pot of a proper size to hold everything.

Add ~ 2T olive oil to the heated pan. Heat oil. Add 1 small onion, chopped. Stir around while it browns.

While it’s browning, chop 2-3 garlic cloves. Put in custard cup. Add to custard cup
2T chili powder
1t ground cumin
1/2t ground cinnamon.

When the onion is showing signs of browning, toss the garlic and spices in on top. Stir until you can smell them toasting.

Add one can diced tomatoes. (I used Hunt’s fire-roasted diced tomatoes w/ garlic)
Add a cup or so of Trader Joe’s ménage à trois peppers, chopped. (or one green pepper, chopped)
Add 10-oz chicken broth.
Add large spoonful of peanut butter (adds some bass tones to the sauce)
Add 2 oz. chocolate, broken into smaller pieces. (Bitter preferred, but if there’s no bitter in the house, any dark chocolate w/ >70% cocoa. DO NOT EVEN THINK OF USING MILK CHOCOLATE!)
Add two chipotle peppers, chopped, if you have them, or some chipotle pepper salsa if you don’t, or don’t worry about it if there’s no chipotle peppers of any sort in the house. The flavor =is= a nice addition if you have it.

Keep stirring sauce on heat until the chocolate’s melted and the peanut butter has blended in. At this point, you throw in the chicken pieces, if you are not dealing with leftover chicken.

In either case, keep stirring and bubbling until the sauce has reduced to the thickness you’re happy with. (And the chicken is cooked, if you weren’t dealing with pre-cooked chicken.) A bit before then, I put the pieces of cooked chicken in so they’d absorb some of the flavors before serving.

Tonight I plan to cook a few boneless chicken thighs and toss them in the (leftover fr last night) mole sauce and have an encore performance.

Delish. (And easy-peasy!)
(w/ hattip to Paula Deen, whose recipe is the foundation of this one. …)

January 12, 2010

Chicken soup for dinner tonight. …

Filed under: life,recipes — Towse @ 6:44 am

Chop. Chop. Chop. Garlic. Onions. Carrots. Celery. Brown a bit in olive oil. Add bay leaves, 8C water, leftover bits of a denuded roast chicken: meaty bones, wings, whatever. All tossed into the pot. Bubble for 2hrs.

Strip the chicken off the bone and tear into shreds and add back into pot. Discard bones. Retrieve bay leaves & discard.

Add some leftover chicken salvaged from the pre-denuded roasted chicken to the pot. Taste. Add Herbes de Provence. Bring to boil then shut off.

Boil some water. Make spaetzle. Strain spaetzle. (Made four batches worth so I didn’t overwhelm the boiling water.) Add butter and toss spaetzle.

Reheat soup. Serve. (Me) : Spaetzle in the bowl, covered w/ soup. (He): Buttered spaetzle on the side. Soup in a bowl.

December 15, 2009

Truffle-palooza last Saturday night

Filed under: life,restaurants — Tags: — Towse @ 1:19 am

Last Saturday was the last but one dinner for the Dissident Chef. He’s putting his pirate ship into drydock so he can focus on the new restaurant that’s a-building at Pier 5.

The Theme was truffles … the fungi not the chocolate. Saturday night’s menu was the long-form (we got home waaay after midnight) while Sunday’s (the final final final dinner for at least a year) was a shortened version to allow folks to get to work on Monday.

Eight courses, followed by three desserts. Every course, including the desserts, had truffles either in or on or over.

(White truffle ice cream …. mmmmmm)

Photos (and menu) from Saturday’s Truffle-palooza

SubCulture Dining Finally Waves Goodbye

December 3, 2009

Let us now praise Canon Customer Support

Filed under: life — Tags: — Towse @ 9:50 pm

Nearing the end of October, an annoying spot appeared on photos taken with my Canon SX110 IS. The spot was too big to edit out of most photos. I tried cleaning the lens. That wasn’t the problem.

At first the spot was up near the top of the photo and I could work around it with judicious planning and cropping. The spot drifted down over the days toward the lower middle of the frame. Cropping and editing EACH AND EVERY photo was not a plan.

I’d had a similar problem with my previous Canon, ending up with multiple spots to deal with, and eventually bought this one not that long ago. Trading in a 4x for a 10x made the upgrade easier to justify. But now this camera had a spot as well … so I went looking for a solution.

The online help at Canon did not deal with dark spots on photos. No solutions given. White spots, yes. Dark spots and blurs, no. So I searched online and found some who claimed the problem was with dust specks inside the camera. The one solution I found for do-it-yourself dust removal seemed hair-raisingly difficult.

I sent a note to Canon support:

Every photo I’ve taken for the last several weeks has a spot in the lower middle of the frame. The spot is large enough that retouching is difficult although I can crop the spot out of some photos. The problem appears to be a dust speck (or specks) within the camera body. What can I do to clean the dust out of the camera?

First back from them within three minutes was an auto-response: we got your msg

The following day:

Thank you for contacting Canon product support. We are sincerely sorry
to hear you are experiencing an issue with dust in your PowerShot SX110
IS. Please accept our apologies regarding this matter. We value you as
a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

Please mail your digital camera to the Factory Service Center shown
below. When shipping your camera, please be sure to remove the memory
card and batteries. You are not required to send any accessories or
manuals when shipping the camera. Be sure to include your name, street
address (no P.O. boxes, please), telephone number, and a letter
describing the issue with the product. Since it has been less than one
year since the camera was purchased, we ask that you also include proof
of warranty in the form of a copy of your sales receipt.

[...]

OK. Fine. So I packaged up the camera, made a copy of the receipt, mailed it off (as suggested) via USPS priority mail. They had suggested that or some other method that tracks packages.

I sat back to wait.

In the mean time, I received two requests from Canon to fill out a survey to see how they were doing. I decided to wait until I saw whether they fixed the camera. …

30 November: a note from Canon that my camera had arrived there and yes, indeed, it looked like a problem they could fix. However, ” Please note that in the unlikely event that any additional internal damage is found due to liquid/water, sand, corrosion, battery leakage or impact (such as dropping the unit), a revised estimate will be sent for your authorization, since these conditions are specifically excluded from warranty coverage.”

02 December: a note from Canon saying they’d shipped my camera back to me.

03 December: I signed for it at the door and took a couple of test shots.

FIXED!

I went back to take the Canon survey that they’d sent earlier and the survey window had expired. [sad face here]

So, instead, I am writing this paean to Canon service. Thank you for fixing my camera so promptly. I felt naked without it with me as I walked around. I appreciate your efforts.

p.s. I wish you’d make some note on your site that black specks in photos could be caused by dust inside the camera that you will fix under warranty. If I’d known that, I would’ve sent my previous camera back to you for service, but now it’s too late and the camera, which I bought a little over two years ago, is out of warranty. Alas. [sad face here] Cost to have a camera repairman take the dust out is probably more than the value of the camera. Instead his nibs will use his fine motorskills to see what he can do — the worst he can do is make the camera unusable, which it already is.

November 29, 2009

Sliding toward the end of the year …

Filed under: life,restaurants — Towse @ 12:37 am

Sliding into the end of the year.

Halloween’s been and gone. The clocks rolled back an hour. Day of the Dead. Guy Fawkes. Siblings’ November shared-birthday, although the older sibling of the two skipped the family gathering and Thanksgiving to go off gallivanting in France and Italy. In another week December comes and with it Dad’s (RIP) and Dan’s shared bday, my sister-in-law’s bday, my oldest brother’s (RIP) bday, his nibs’ bday that he shares with my uncle. Christmas. And then, around the corner, is the New Year, awaiting discovery.

And the sound of hoofbeats creeping up behind. …

Instead of Black Friday, yesterday, his nibs and I met up at the California Academy of Sciences, where he had two shifts of docent duty, and went to the Moss Room for dinner. The Moss Room isn’t, anymore. The living wall of mosses never gained traction and has been replaced by a living wall of ferns and other such flora.

Will they rename the restaurant the Fern Room? I doubt it.

We shared a delicious turnip soup with cream, a splash of this and a bit of pork belly. We shared a Lon and Bailey Farms Pork Belly with spiced pumpkin puree, sweet onions, pheasant egg, balsamic — eggs and bacon by any other name. He had opah. I had guinea fowl on a pool of green curry, greens, fingerling potatoes. We shared a side of gratin cauliflower.

So what’s on the table tonight? Leftover Thanksgiving fixings, courtesy of my talented brother (brined turkey, mashed, two kinds of dressing, corn casserole) and courtesy of my talented son-in-law with able assist from our son (salad, rolls), and my contributions (sweet potato casserole, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie).

And then the November holidays will be gone and we’ll be skidding into December and what?

Where has this year gone? Anything accomplished? Happier now than last year this time? Who is gone? Who has arrived? Books read? Words written?

Flowers planted and picked and enjoyed, then tossed into the compost bin.

The days grow short when you reach the end of November.

Time to make plans.

Time to re-commit to and internalize the final panel of Calvin and Hobbes.

October 29, 2009

Bay Bridge still closed …

Filed under: life,news,photographs — Tags: , — Towse @ 4:08 pm

The ferries head in and head out. The bridge is empty of traffic (except for the 108 on the upper deck) while repairs continue on the eastern span.

 

Posted by Picasa

After sunrise. A single truck on the bridge. Traffic is only allowed between San Francisco and Treasure Island/Yerba Buena: the 108, a few cars, repair vehicles, an occasional truck. That’s it until the repairs on the broken crossbeam and tie rods are finished, examined, inspected, okay’d, and the bridge re-opens.

Traffic elsewhere is a scramble. BART and the ferries are packed.

 

Posted by Picasa

October 19, 2009

Contigo and more

Filed under: life,restaurants — Tags: — Towse @ 5:11 am

Public transit to Eureka Valley for the annual (always a different neighborhood) San Francisco Victorian Home tour.

Then walked up and over to Noe Valley and hung out (in bookstores and a bar, ‘natch) until Contigo (1320 Castro Street — between 24th St & Jersey St) opened for dinner.

Dee-lish dinner.

Walked down to Church and took the J to the Montgomery Station and popped above ground to take the 30 to Washington Square Park. Walked home.

I’ll write about all in more detail … later.

October 15, 2009

A swell evening out, followed by an SFMTA … messup.

Filed under: life,public transit — Tags: , — Towse @ 4:56 pm

Last night we headed over to the Galleria at SF Design Center for Wine & Spirits‘ Top 100 Wines event. We bought the plebe tickets and had a discount on those, so the evening was the cost of a nice dinner. Walked down the hill and caught the 10-Townsend at Levi’s Plaza. A while and a ways later, we arrived just as the plebe doors opened at 6:30P.

Fine time. In addition to the wineries that made the list (of which we had far fewer than 100 tastes and red-wine-only at that), the interspersed foodie tables included wares from Flour & Water, Il Cane Rosso, Hog Island Oysters, Heaven’s Dog, Gitane, Cliff House, and more.

The event was shutting down at 8:30P, and with a last hurrah we handed our Riedel wine glasses to the gent at the exit and left to catch the bus home. The 10-Townsend stops running at 8P or so, but we could catch the 19-Polk at 15th and Rhode Island and take it up to Union and Polk where we’d catch the 45 down to Washington Square Park.

We thought.

We walked around the corner and down a block to the bus stop. NextBus signage said the next bus was due in 20 minutes or so. We could wait. The weather’s been relatively warm with the Japanese storm and it wasn’t raining. Thanks be.

The signage counted down (with some hiccups) to four minutes more to wait and then, suddenly, flipped to saying the next bus was due in 15 minutes. Wah?

The signage counted down (again) (again with some hiccups) until it said, “ARRIVING.”

We watched a different bus heading south on an adjacent parallel street and our next bus info changed its mind. Our next bus was now due in twenty-two minutes.

Is NextBus based on GPS in the buses? Or is it all just wet-finger guessology?

One of the other people waiting for the phantom bus called to see where the 19-Polk might be and when we could expect it. Oh, the answer came back after he’d been put on hold, there was a shooting and that’s why your bus is delayed.

(So tell me again why it said, “ARRIVING,” if it had had no intention of arriving and was, in fact, twenty-some minutes away?)

(Still can’t find any news reports of such a thing online this AM. Had we misunderstood? Would a fire at Union Square interrupt a bus route on Polk, because that’s the only trouble that happened last night that seems to have been deemed newsworthy.)

It’s now quarter to ten rather than quarter to nine, when we first arrived at the bus stop. No bus. No one knows if the latest ETA is even accurate. When will the next 19 arrive? None of us trust the system at this point. Pretty crummy for bus service that is supposed to arrive every twenty minutes at that time of the day.

The crowd waiting for the 19 at 15th and Rhode Island started to disperse. Each of us headed off to the location we thought would most likely result in a bus ride before midnight.

We opted to walk from 15th & Rhode Island to 4th and Townsend (a little less than a mile) to catch the 30 back to Washington Square Park, which still would leave us about half a mile up hill (and down) home. (Most of the other nearby bus stops we knew about were either no-longer-running 10s or the mysteriously-missing 19.)

Finally reached home around quarter to eleven. Far later than we’d intended.

What if we hadn’t been in shape or willing to walk over to catch the 30? Would the 19 ever have arrived?

What responsibility does SFMTA have to their customers waiting after dark (or during the day for that matter) to get them from where they are to where they are wanting to go according to the published schedules?

Inquiring minds.

October 14, 2009

[RECIPE] Not Chicken Waterzooi

Filed under: life,recipes — Towse @ 3:49 pm

Since Sunday, chimes had jangled like mad. Jets took off in the other direction from SFO’s runways to adjust for winds from the south. Clear signs our first rains of the season were coming. Cue early morning hours. Pelting rain. Creaking trees…. Wild winds. I was awakened when a heavy set of chimes ripped from its moorings and landed downhill.

I sat next to the windows yesterday, watching the storm beating down. The wind sometimes blew the rain sideways. The parrots were in hiding.

A supper of stew seemed in order. I had no beef suitable for stewing in the house, so I opted for chicken. I was going to make Gentse Waterzooi, which his nibs adores, but had no leeks and no intention of leaving the house to pick up ingredients.

Here is what we wound up with for supper last night.

[RECIPE] Not Chicken Waterzooi

6 chunks of boneless chicken thighs cut into large pieces
2 large carrots, cut into chunks. (Next time I’ll shred them as is more proper for Waterzooi, but I was being lazy yesterday.)
half a large yellow onion, chopped
leftover grilled strips of trumpet mushroom and onion from the Bixby weekend

Toss into a crock pot with 1 1/2C chicken broth, parsley, mixed herb seasoning.

Let burble for several hours until the chicken and carrots are tender. Add as much frozen O’Brien hashbrown potatoes as you’d like to the mix. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

Serve in large soup bowls.

No added heavy whipping cream. No thickeners beyond the natural thickening talents of carrots and potatoes.

Delish.

August 26, 2009

Farmers’ market tomatoes in my future

Filed under: gardening,life — Towse @ 7:11 pm

Last year we watched the tomatoes ripen on a neighbor’s deck and I thought, ho. Hadn’t realized we got enough sun and warmth here to grow tomatoes but maybe I could add some tomatoes to the mix of herbs and flowers I currently grow on the deck.

The die was cast when we were in a nursery and saw six-packs of begonias that had volunteer tomatoes growing in them. Two six-packs of begonias. Three “free” tomato plants. The two tomato cages were picked up for free on the sidewalk down by Union and Cadell Place where someone had left five for first-takers. I bought pots. Pots are reusable. I bought bags of potting mix. Also reusable. I potted my tomato plants and began the adventure.

Net cost $0 except for the cost of water.

One pot’s contents turned out to be cherry tomatoes. So far I’ve got two cherry tomatoes off the plant. Something four-footed seems to get to the tomatoes before I feel they’re ripe enough.

The two plants with large tomatoes? So far all of the tomatoes have met the fate of this one.

 

Posted by Picasa

Sometimes the entire almost-ripe tomato disappears overnight. Sometimes just part of it, but the rest disappears soon enough.

We’re talking either roof rats — possible, although they’ve been nowhere to be seen for four years, since the cat moved in — or raccoons — more possible because they know their way up five stories of spiral metal stairs. The Guy says it could also be parrots, nibbling during the day and we just don’t check the tomatoes before we go to bed. Whoever is doing this, boy, do they make a mess, spattering tomato juices on the wall behind the pots.

No deck-grown tomatoes next year. Farmers’ market at the Ferry Building will be my tomato source instead.

Was worth a try.

« Newer PostsOlder Posts »

Powered by WordPress