Pomi Tomato Sauce

I have discovered a brand of tomato sauce called Pomi. I made a tomato sauce with it last night and I cannot stop raving about it. The tomatoes that Pomi uses are perfect: not too much acid and great taste. I generally need to add sugar to a tomato sauce to round out the flavor and to battle the acidic nature of the tomato. This time I didn't need to add sweetener. I am a believer of Pomi brand tomatoes and will only buy this brand in the future.

Previously I had thought that Del Monte was a reputable brand for tomato sauce or even the Safeway brand but all tomatoes are not made equally. I have learned my lesson and all my pasta sauces, lasagna, etc will be made with Pomi.

You can buy Pomi here

Food Budget

How much do you spend a week on food? The Pennywise Eat Local Challenge (SF Gate article) claims that the average is $10 per person per day. For a couple that means it is $140 for the week allocated to food. That amount seems a bit excessive to me. If I assume that you cook every day of the week (which in itself is unrealistic due to special ocassions, etc) then $140 seems like a lot of money. Our current food bill for the two of us hovers around $70-$100/week, depending on how much meat or seafood we buy. I wonder how the the budget of $10 is determined ... If we ate $140 a week (all purely cooking) then we'd never save money to go out to eat, go on vacations, etc.

Meat Tenderizer

I received my Jaccard meat tenderizer as part of my Christmas loot and it has quickly become one of my favorite items. It is easy to use and produces a noticable difference when you use it versus when you don't.

Last night I was too lazy to get the meat tenderizer out to use on a chicken breast. I proceeded to season it as a I normally would and pan fried it. It was a huge mistake on my part not to use the meat tenderizer. It was very hard to evenly cook the chicken breast (due to the uneven size of it) and when it cooked up, the shape wasn't very appealing. The thicker side of the chicken breast was splitting apart from itself and the thin side of the chicken breast was woefully overcooked.

I immediatley pulled out another chicken breast and used the meat tenderizer on it. Using the meat tenderizer made a world of difference. It made the chicken breast have an even thickness all the way around and when it cooked, the chicken breast did not become overcooked on any one side. The marinade penetrated more deeply throughout the chicken breast and it was overall pleasure to eat.

I don't particularly believe the meat tenderizer reduces cooking time but I do know it makes it
1. easier to cook since it evens out the meat thickness throughout the entire piece
2. allows the marinade to deeply penetrate the meat
3. the cooked meat has a more pleasing look than the untenderized meat.

My Jacard meat tenderizer has a special place in my kitchen and I couldn't imagine living without one.

Baked Potato Wedges

I like french fries but I dislike deep frying in the house. I try not to deep fry because deep frying isn't very healthy for you and it also makes the house smell. I had a bunch of potatoes and I wanted to eat them like french fries. What was the solution? The solution is to make them baked wedge fries.

Potato wedges are thicker versions of french fries and they satisfy my craving easily and quickly. It was really easy to make and Ming happily pronounced that the potato wedges were suitable substitutes for french fries.

Potato Wedges
potatoes
seasoned salt
black pepper
paprika
olive oil

Cut each potato into wedges. For a normal potato I get anywhere between 8 - 12 wedges. I like my wedges to be smaller so that each wedge ends up being very crunchy. Place the wedges onto a baking sheet (single layer) and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle the seasoned salt, black pepper, paprika onto the potato wedges. Place the baking sheet into a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes. Halfway through the baking take the sheet out, flip the wedges, and reseason with seasonings and olive oil. Rotate the pan before placing back into the oven.

Morning Coffee

I like my coffee with cream only. I don't like it when there is sugar in it nor black. I have a hard time drinking coffee in my office, however because no one takes it with cream. We don't have any cream in the office and if I want coffee, then the only way for me to take it is black or with sugar; I prefer it black than with sugar.

I do, however, like Vietnamese iced coffee. Vietnamese iced coffee is very strong coffee mixed with condensed milk and served over ice. In Hong Kong many people drink their coffee with some type of sugar, generally condensed milk. I have found that I actually like coffee with condensed milk and no milk. The condensed milk is creamy enough that adding milk to it would be overkill.

My favorite brand of condensed milk is the Longevity brand. It doesn't contain a slew of strange additives and isn't too sweet. I have to go to Asian grocery stores to get it but since I go there weekly, it's easy to pick up.

My mornings are now enjoyable at work since I can have my coffee in a manner that I enjoy.

Sauternes and Apple Tart

I first had the pleasure of drinking a sauternes when I was at a friend's house for dinner. He served a sauternes with foie gras. The combination of the sweet and the savory was amazing and it was truly a wonderful match. Since then I've had the lingering memory of the sauternes and how lovely it was.



One day Ming and I happened to come across a 1990 sauternes in a wine store and we immediately knew we had to have it. One amex card later it was in our car and on its way to its new home. Not only did we both know we'd enjoy the sauternes but 1990 was supposed to be an exceptional year for sauternes as well.

The next biggest dilemma we had was what occasion to drink our prized wine at. I received a call from my mom telling us that we were all to have dinner at my aunt's house one day. I immediately recognized that this was to be the occasion for the sauternes. My uncle was a wine connoisseur and everyone at the table would enjoy a dessert wine.



The next question was what to pair the sauternes with. Since dinner was already taken care of, dessert was the next logical choice. After consulting with various internet sources about what the best pairing should be, I decided to make an apple tart. Cheese, while another really good accompaniment to sauternes was out of the question since no one at the dinner really appreciates cheese. I decided to make an apple tart and blended two recipes together. I made the tart's base using Dorie Greenspan's pate sablee recipe, which I used to make my french pear tart. The apple topping was simply taking 4 apples, slicing them and placing them on top of the partially cooked pate sablee. I stuck the whole tart into then oven for about 1 hour at 375 degrees.

The sauternes and apple tart were magical together. The sauternes was beautifully sweet and the apple tart was slightly crunchy and salty (from the buttery crust). It was a dessert that was well received by everyone and one not to leave my memory anytime soon.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Making perfect light, fluffy, and tall biscuits seems to be one of the most difficult items people struggle with -- I am no exception. A perfect biscuit seems to be one of the holy grails of cooking. It is delicious but oh-so-difficult to attain. Ming happens to love biscuits and is forever encouragine me whenever I mention that I'd like to, once again, attempt another batch of biscuits.

I don't have a biscuit cutter and I don't really want to go out and buy a set of biscuit cutters when I really only need a single one. I have improvised and, instead of buying a set of cutters with sizes which I will never use, I have used a plain tin can.



I have used upside down glasses before and they never really seemed to work. They always squished the biscuit dough, thereby making for squattier biscuits which weren't as tender nor delicious. Since I know that mothers and grandmothers back in the 1800s never had fancy stores like Sur La Table to buy biscuit cutters, I am sure they must have used sometihng similar to an old tin can to shape their biscuits. I still cannot make myself create square biscuits -- that still seems too sacrligious.



White Lily Flour is another ingredient that will help you create perfect biscuits. The flour is light and will help your biscuits since it contains less gluten. Gluten is what prevents biscuits from being tender. Using white lily flour makes a huge difference with the biscuits. The dough feels so much lighter and more airy.

The recipe came from Dorie Greenspan's book, yet again. The biscuits were light and fluffy. Ming pronounced the biscuits fit for consumption and both of us promptly began to eat them for breakfast.