Time to try a dessert! In honor of the just-finished Winter Olympics hosted in Vancouver, I decided to go with Canada’s culinary contribution to the series: Maple Sugar Pie. I’m pretty inexperienced at both desserts and baking, so this was definitely a new thing for me.
I’m honestly not a huge fan of pecan pie, so I wasn’t sure I’d like this that much. I do like maple syrup, though, so that was promising. Turns out this is a quite easy and tasty dessert and was a hit among my coworkers who I shared it with. Smells and tastes like breakfast!
Turns out I could’ve left it in a bit longer as the deepest parts around the edge were a bit undercooked. But otherwise it turned out very well! The homemade crust was a bit tricky to get rolled out nice, but turned out pretty good after a couple of attempts. Very rich (whole stick of butter!), but simple and hard to mess up.
Not like any other Mexican dish I’ve had, with a very Spanish/Mediterranean blend of ingredients and flavors. I was a bit concerned about the olives and capers since I don’t really like either, but the dish was amazing. The raisins balanced out the dryness of the olives and capers, and the jalepeños made it all the better. Scrumptious.
As you may have seen from other recent blog postings, I’ve recently been checking out epicurious.com. I happened to check their blog a couple weeks ago when they had a brief posting about aquaponics. Aquaponics refers to the growing of plants in water (hydroponics), together with fish (aquaculture) in a closed system, where the fishes’ waste feeds the plants, which in turn clean the water for the fish. It struck me as a pretty nifty idea, not to mention a fun project and practical justification for having a fish tank and fountain (both of which I like).
So I began shopping around for kits and such, but eventually realized that it shouldn’t be too difficult just to make my own. After reading up quite a bit, I finally came up with a design idea, bought the parts, and in a week’s time went from buying the first parts to adding the fish and plants. The system has been running for a few days now and both plants and fish look healthy, so no disasters yet. Time will tell if this turns out to be a productive herb garden (moreso than my traditional attempt which was rather unimpressive).
Pictures and video below. Enjoy!
Cutting the drain hole. My initial idea was just to stick this fitting through the hole and seal with silicone. The silicone didn’t adhere to the container at all, so I wound up having to take a different approach.
Water supply distributor. Wound up drilling more holes than this so the pump wouldn’t have to work as hard. Intent is to evenly distribute a somewhat slow stream of water along the entire end of the grow bed.
Here’s the first pass at the entire system. Both containers were from The Container Store and cost about $12 each. I would have preferred a true fish tank for the bottom, but I couldn’t find any low enough to fit in my shelving unit. If this turns out to be successful, I may one day scale up, but for now this should do. The pump is a 175 GPH Sun Terra fountain I had bought previously for a fountain idea I had, which I ended up not keeping. You can also see here the blue air pump and air stone.
The PVC piping is 1/2″ which fit perfectly over the pump’s output.
Here’s the system with the Hydroten added. Hydroten is a pH-neutral grow medium specifically sold for hydroponics. I got a large back for a reasonable price at Texas Hydroponics here in Austin. The employees were very helpful, and judging from the marijuana t-shirt one of them was wearing, I have a guess as to why. Hey, more power to ‘em… I’m all for legalizing the stuff (this documentary gives some good arguments why).
Water output from a filtration chamber I added later. When I first added water to the Hydroten, I quickly realized that the stuff is extremely dusty initially. I ended up having to rinse it with 50+ gallons of water, and it still was a bit murky. I modified the drain to dump into a cheap trash can which then drains into the fish tank. The trash can gives the dirt particles a chance to settle down to the bottom instead of going straight into the fish tank, and I can add filtration media into the tank if necessary (for now I have a piece of foam in there).
Added some pebbles for the fish. Also glued the PVC joints after they started leaking slowly.
Over the weekend, I had a French-themed dinner party for some friends. I cooked up some ratatouille and tarte tatin, and served with merlot, chardonnay, brie, camembert and French bread. Very tasty, and not too difficult to cook either. Then we watched the brilliant Pixar film Ratatouille.
My mom used to make ratatouille, and I’ve made a version of it myself on a couple of occasions. The version I’ve made before was a sort of Americanized version, very simple with few spices, very little sauce, and a lot of cheese. Good, but probably not what the French would consider very authentic.
This recipe is much more flavorful, complex, and reminds me of the more traditional recipe my mom used to make. Very delicious, and not difficult!
Never had this before, but it sounded like a reasonably easy and tasty way to start experimenting with French desserts. It was! I think I like good ‘ole American apple pie better, but this is still very good. It’s easier to make, lighter and more delicate.
Continuing my foray into more challenging cooking, this week’s dish was Pozole Rojo with Tortillas de Maiz. I’ve never had Pozole Rojo, a Mexican stew made from pork and hominy, and I’ve never made tortillas. So sounded like another good way to branch out!
Corn tortillas are made from a corn flour product called masa, which is corn processed with lime so that the hulls come off and the corn is softer. It also makes the corn more nutritious by adding calcium and releasing niacin. The recipe is super simple, just the flour and warm water kneaded, pressed and then cooked in a hot pan.
I didn’t have a tortilla press, but I do have some large plates with smooth bottoms. Using that with a gallon zip-lock cut along the sides worked very well, and the tortillas turn out quite well! Getting them to fall flat on the pan the first time is a bit tricky, so they weren’t super smooth, but they held together surprisingly well. The recipe could have perhaps used a bit of salt, but unless you’re eating them plain it’s not a big deal.
After pressing and cooking them, I fried them up to make chip strips do add to the Pozole Rojo.
Pozole Rojo takes a while to make, as you first simmer the pork ribs for over an hour, then pull the meat off to add back to the broth with the rest of the ingredients. It was kind of hard to put two racks of pork ribs in a soup…I was really tempted to grill them!
Here’s the red chile sauce. It’s just made of dried chiles soaked in hot water, garlic and onion.
Ta da! The hominy adds a pretty strong flavor that takes some getting used to, but after having it for most of my meals this week, I’ve grown to really like the flavor of this stew. It’s a bit milder than I expected from the hot chile sauce, so next time I may make a bit more of that. But all in all, tasty!
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