One of the simplest recipes that I know is for Salmon Rice. This was inspired by one of the dishes in IBM Japan’s cafeteria. To make it, I measure out a rice-maker cup of rice into the bowl and wash it out. Although, to be honest, you can skip that step if you want. I then fill up the bowl with water to the line marked “1”. I put in some salt (so that hopefully it will dissolve and soak into the grains) and some unfiltered nigori saki. I then put a piece of salmon on top of it and press the start button. The beauty of this method is that I do not have to defrost the fish. It is fully cooked by the time my Zojirushi fuzzy logic induction rice cooker is done.

Just add cracked black pepper when it is done and eat.

I am not a purist. I mix the rice up good…

I was inspired by this recipe. It is representative of fall for me (although I never eat them). This morning was the first cool morning for Austin (with a low of 36 degrees Fahrenheit). Perhaps that put me into the mood? Anyways… So I went to the store and bought the necessary ingredients (forgetting, of course, the Popsicle sticks): honey, heavy cream, salt, and apples. I spied some Grāpples and thought that they smelled good. Just like grapes! Stupid me though, did not fully read the label or ingredient list. Afterward, I notice that the second and third ingredients are “natural grape flavor” and “artificial grape flavor.” WTF?! I mistakenly assumed that it was an apple/grape hybrid. Sigh.

Also, does H.E.B. carry unwaxed apples? I scrubbed them down with a sponge and hoped that I removed all of the wax. But it didn’t feel that way. Sigh redux.

I normally make caramel by first melting dry sugar until it browns and then by adding the cream to it. Which is a rather extreme and time-consuming method. That sugar locks up solid from the temperature shock. But it eventually melts back into a liquid. This recipe starts with the cream and honey added together, boiling the water out of the mixture, and stopping when it reaches hard-ball stage.

I don’t know which method is easier. The liquid mixture has a lot of proteins in it. So it can boil over if you don’t watch it. In fact, it boil over as you watch it. Just to spite you. And it takes a while to fully cook. At least thirty minutes. Of stirring.

This picture was challenging. I am still not satisfied with it. I took twelve different frames and I messed with the light meter before I got all of the settings correct. There are so many variables to account for! I ended up with an ISO of 50, a shutter speed of 1/80 second, and an aperture of 5.6. I wanted to reduce the depth of field down to f/2.8 or even f/1.4, but my setup was pumping out too much light! If only the camera had an ISO value of 12.5.

Also, my off-axis flash highlight was too harsh. I needed to use a softbox. But I didn’t want to go through the effort to make that happen.

All those pictures took 24 minutes. Which is a lifetime in food photography. A pipping hot apple turns into a cold, and sagging apple with condensation on it…

I bought some different drinks at Central Market today. The first was chocolate milk. It is a Danish product called Cocio. The other was a soda made with a sweetener from an herb. It is called Zevia.

Here I am in the middle of making some Hatch chile sauce. These chiles have been fire roasted by the grocery store. The skin has been blackened into a state resembling activated charcoal. And nothing has been done to these chiles before roasting, so I have to remove the stem, seeds, and blackened skin. I add some onion, chicken stock, and vegetable stock.

Now I consider a thickening agent. And I am in the mood for a roux. I put two tablespoons of butter and flour in a small non-stick pan and stir vigorously over a medium heat. The mixture turns from white, to yellow, to light brown, to coffee milk color, to peanut butter color. I remove the pan from the stove and continue to stir madly. There is a lot of residual heat left. Even when I dump the mixture into the sauce, the super heated oil flash boils the sauce. Which is when the smell overwhelms me. And I bath in a primal memory of coffee…

I was not a fan of canned tuna as a youngster. But something Marty said a while ago about the sandwich made me try one. I found out that I like them now. But I am particular on how they are made. The bread must be high quality and should be able to stand on its own. The same goes for the cheese.

Melt two ounces of butter in a pan. Take two slices of H.E.B.’s jalapeno pepper cheese bread and soak up the butter on one side. Leave that side down on the pan and place a slice of Boar’s Head Monterrey pepper jack cheese on top of the bread. Spoon half a package of Starkist chunk light tuna in water on top of one of the slices of bread. Season liberally with salt, pepper, Mrs. Dash, and red pepper flakes. Put the other slice of bread on top to complete the sandwich. Let the cheese melt and the butter brown. Help the process along by pressing the sandwich down. Enjoy immediately (even before you cook another).

The Simga 8mm fisheye lens was interesting to shoot with. The camera is leaning over the table at an angle and close to the plate. Even with two big lowel lights, there was not enough light on the cut side of the sandwich. So I used three 580EX speedlights. One one the camera as a master. And two held off to the sides in my hands that were slaves. All three were on 1/64th power.

I had some Strawberry Rhubarb pie at the Monument Cafe and just had to make it myself. It is simple to make too. Well, if you ignore the first attempt where I cooked the strawberries and rhubarb before it went into the pie. I was hoping to turn it into a jam-like consistency. Both both ingredients broke down completely and turned into mush. So, for the next attempt, I just dumped one 16 ounce container of strawberries and one 16 ounce bag of defrosted rhubarb into the pie after mixing it together with a cup of brown sugar, a fourth of a cup of ground tapioca, a tablespoon of cornstarch, some salt, some cinnamon, and some vanilla. The first problem with this version is the amount of water that came out of the berries and barbs. The tapioca and cornstarch was inadequate to soak up the liquid. But it turned out to be okay because I just poured it out after it came out of the oven. The other problem was that the heat of the oven had a dry roasting effect on the berries/barbs and not what I was looking for. But it was still tasty though.

I make three batches of dough at a time. And I store the dough in the refrigerator. Which lasts for a couple of weeks before I have to toss it (the moist environment is a breeding ground for mold). During its time in the refrigerator, the dough will rise somewhat. I take the dough out of its container a couple of hours before cooking and let it warm up and rise the rest of the way on the night of the pizza.

But, for the last batch of dough, I tried storing the dough in the freezer immediately after mixing it. This dough should last for months if not years in the freezer. But it requires extra steps before it is ready to use as a pizza. I let it defrost in the refrigerator for a day. And then I stuck it in the oven with the light on to proof for eight hours. Which it did just fine. But it was now too late to make pizza. So I stuck it back into the refrigerator. The next day, I plopped it out and made pizza. I think sticking it back into the refrigerator actually helped a bit. Because the cold dough sticks to itself better. I can easily and carefully remove the dough from the bowl without deflating it that much. Which leads to an easier to stretch pie.

This time I was curious if separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites would make any difference. I had this idea of making a Soufflé. But reality set in. Melted chocolate + butter + sugar = a dense and grainy lump. It is impossible to fold this mixture into the egg whites. But all was not lost. I mixed it enough to make it homogeneous. And it rose in the oven.

It was interesting when I was reviewing the pictures. You could see the cake fall over the frames. This time I turned off the master flash on the camera and used a slave flash at the camera’s lower right hand side (against the Lowel light). This lit up the side of the cake and gave it more dimension.

When I stopped my Monument cafe for lunch one day, I noticed someone selling locally grown produce. I wanted some heirloom tomatoes. But they didn’t have any. So I bought a half of a pound of garlic for a buck. Mmmm, the smell they made while they sat in my truck was divine.

So today, I roasted them. But first I had to take a picture of my self taking a picture. I think that I need another tripod and camera…

It is a real pain to get the right balance between steaming the garlic and browning the garlic. Not only did I fail at that. But this batch of garlic acted weirdly. They secreted some protein like scum (such as floats to the top when making soup stock). Of course, this browned nicely. But it tasted bitter. So I left it out.

And, of course, after I cooked the garlic I had an idea to cook them confit style in some duck lard. Gah! Next time…