Author Archives: Renate Valencia

Will it go round in circles? The ice cream maker, I mean

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a scoop of raspberry swirl ices cream

Ice cream is important, nay, essential, to a quality summer – especially the homemade kind.

Why make homemade ice cream?  Because you control the sugar, which is key for me because I hate things that are so sweet.  I also don’t much like gums and chemicals, and don’t appreciate a ridiculous overrun percentage, namely the volume increase by air.  Check out Cook’s Illustrated on the matter.  There’s an ice cream talked about there that’s 97% overrun.  Manufacturers, please.

There are three ways you can make ice cream at home nowadays.  An ice and rock salt affair that gets plugged in or hand cranked, though I haven’t seen one without juice for some time, a compressor-based model like the ones used commercially, and one that has a liquid-filled drum that you freeze.

The ice and salt method produces superior ice cream, but it’s a big mess and you have to schlep a bag of ice, which I have no space to store.  Trust me, you’ll never make ice cream at the last minute with this kind of set-up.

Compressor models can cost thousands of dollars, but they have built-in freezers and you need only to plug them in.  Cuisinart came out with a home model a couple of years back (ICE-50BC) that’ll run you about $250 – at the cheapest.  As God is my witness, I will have one of these before I die.  Right now, though, I can’t spend the money.

The ones with the drum that gets frozen – which the paddle scrapes against as it goes round and round – are sketchy in my opinion.  They generally don’t get the ice cream firm enough, and you have to freeze it to the consistency of real ice cream after it comes out of the machine.  To be honest with you, I had a small Donvier 20 years ago that I hated, and it was only recently that I decided to give the dreaded drum another try – but only because I have a new freezer that is really 0 deg. F. whose temperature remains stable.  If you do not have this, I don’t suggest this method.  The zero gives you a really, really frozen drum, and the stability keeps the ice cream from becoming crystalline when it goes in there to harden.

I’d been reading about the Cuisinart ICE-20R, a little plug-in affair with drum that was getting good reviews.  Since I had a Sur La Table gift certificate on hand, I thought I’d go get a blue one there.  Matt and I had lunch at Tacubaya (4th Street shopping center in Berkeley), a great little Mexican snack/small meal place, which is owned by the folks behind Oakland’s Doña Tomás, by the way, and then plodded across the street to Sur La Table.

Cuisinart ice cream maker in blue

When I was a kid in New York City in the 1970s, there was an ad jingle that went, “I browse at Bloomingdale’s….but I buy at Alexander’s!”  Sur La Table is a little like that for me:  pricey, but a great place to peruse.  I buy gadgets and things there that I can’t find elsewhere, and run into the occasional bargain.  Very nice people at the Berkeley store.  $55 later we were back in the car with a box.

Nice, sturdy thing with only four parts and a cord that actually fits totally into the base when not in use.  I appreciate this, given the way I have to fight with my rice cooker in this regard.  Not pretty.

You can make up to 1-1/2 quarts of ice whatever, though I make a quart so I’m not pushing the drum to its outside limit.

Read the manual from start to finish.  You’ll be sorry if you don’t, because you’ll mess something up, most likely with drum handling.

scraped out vanilla bean

I’ll give you my basic (non-cooked) ice cream recipe to start off with, but know that you can make a cooked base that’ll give you very rich ice cream, if you like that.  I can’t stand custards of any kind, so ice cream with eggs is something I stay away from.  Start with this recipe first so you get the hang of the machine.  Also, note that you will be dealing with a delicate product – there are no stabilizers!  You may not be used to this.  Try to get the ice cream out of the drum/canister and into the freezer quickly.

Finally, when recipes call for only a few ingredients, make sure they are of a high quality.  Spring for organic dairy products here.

In sum, if you want to make very good homemade ice cream and don’t want to spend big bucks, you can’t do better than this Cuisinart.  Easy to set up, operate and clean, it’s hassle-free and you can make ice cream at fairly short notice if you store the drum in the freezer at all times.

Easy Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream
   Makes about a quart, give or take

1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream (yes, that’s right)
1/3 vanilla bean, scraped of its contents (use the shell to make vanilla sugar – don’t throw it away!)
3 or 4 tablespoons raspberry preserves, pushed through a fine sieve if the seeds bother you

1).  Make sure the ice cream drum/canister goes into the freezer the day before.
2).  Whisk milk, sugar and vanilla until there are no sugar granules left.
3).  Whisk in the cream.
4).  Place mix in fridge while you quickly set up machine with the drum rotating.
5).  Pour ice cream mix into the top (there is a hole for this).
6).  Let run for 25 – 30 mins, but check now and then.
7).  When nice and thick (check my photos), get it out of there and into a plastic container with a spatula.  Work fast because the ice cream will freeze and fuse to the drum.
8).  Smooth ice cream and add a few veins of raspberry conserve.  You don’t have to be too neat about it – get it done fast.
9).  Seal container and pop in freezer for at least 2 hours.

If you want to mimic Baskin-Robbins Baseball Nut – a flavor I love – press in some chopped cashews after the raspberry swirl before the mass goes into the freezer.

The raspberry I used is not bright red because it’s Berkeley Bowl’s organic version – no colorings.

Word of warning:  don’t try to clean the drum right away.  Whatever you put in there will fuse to the surface, including your hand.

Here are some photos of the process:

1).  Ice cream mix

ice cream fixings

2).  Mix added to machine

Ice cream mix just added to machine

3).  At about the right stage

ice cream ready to come out of ice cream maker

4).  Looking like ice cream

Ice cream coming out of ice cream machine

5).  With the raspberry swirl and ready for the freezer

ice cream with raspberry swirl ready for the freezer

Roasted Peppers for Summer!

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Tricolor roated peppers in blue dish with olive oil

Hurray for June!  It’s now bell pepper season in Cali, and I can turn out roasted peppers to my heart’s content!

Roasted peppers are delicious and cut a lovely appearance.  If you stick to a recipe that’s basic, leftovers are versatile.

There are a couple of ways to go here, depending upon how much time you have and what you want to do with them.

First, red and orange bell peppers are generally sweeter than the yellow, but it’s nice to have that extra color on the plate.  You’re free to include regular old green ones, but these have bitter notes, so I leave them off.

Try to get peppers that have been allowed to ripen on the plant, because they’ll be sweeter – more caramelization in the roasting process, you see.  This is why it’s great to buy at stellar produce shops like Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market.  If you ask them this kind of thing, they’ll know.

Roasted Tri-color Peppers with Olive Oil and Black Pepper

2 red, 2 yellow and 2 orange organic bell peppers, washed and dried well
Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper in grinders
Optional:  Shaved or grated Parmesano Reggiano

1).  Jack up your oven to 425 F. – convection, if you have it.
2).  Place peppers on a sheet pan and slide into oven.
3).  Using long tongs, turn them over now and again (like every few minutes) so they darken and cook evenly.
4).  When they are nice and brown/black — and they don’t need to be a solid brown/black, rather they should have lots of spots that are evenly distributed — take them out with tongs ASAP and pop into a couple of large Ziploc bags and seal them.  You are harnessing moist heat here to cause the skins to pull away from the flesh.  Put the bags in bowls in case the heat causes them to break, which happens, so that you catch the natural juices.  You’ll need the juices later.
5).  After about an hour, take out the peppers, one by one, and slip the skins (which should be loose) off.  Pull the stems off and gently tear the pepper to open it and push out the seeds with your fingers.  Don’t rinse them, rather use your fingers to get all the “bad” things off.
6).  Cut or tear them into large strips and arrange on a plate.
7).  Pour the pepper juices over the top.*
8).  Crank a little sea salt and coarse black pepper over peppers.
9).  Finish with a drizzle of excellent olive oil and some Parmesano Reggiano, if you like, but they are delectable without it.

*If you prefer, you can make a vinaigrette out of the pepper juices, olive oil and a little lemon juice, and top peppers with this

Leftovers (without the parmesan) can be served on a sandwich, like my famous egg, roasted red pepper, roasted potato and turkey breast on toasted whole grain bread.   You can also use them as a base for a pureed hot or cold soup, and in a ground walnut and red pepper spread, called muhammara.  Another fun thing to make with them is a terrine, layering the colors.  There are endless uses, and they will be about a million times better than what you get in a jar or can.

Roasted red pepper, egg, cheese, turkey, potato on whole wheat

If you have no time on your hands, you can make a simple roasted pepper.  Just wash, dry, seed, and cut up.  Arrange on a sheet pan and rub with a little olive oil to coat.  Add a dash of salt to the mix if you like, and roast at 400 F. until they get a bit singed.  Take them out and transfer to a serving dish.

roasted yellow peppers in a green bowl

This version is tasty, but they still have their skins, so you’ll have to take that into consideration.

On being green

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I sometimes have to take good-natured ribbing from friends back home in NY about the culture in California, the SF Bay Area, and Berkeley and environs – in that order.

The stereotype of the “California yahoo” seems to increase in magnitude with that progression, reaching its apex smack-dab in Berkeley.

I’m asked regularly if I’ve replaced my roof with cow dung and am growing organic crops up there.

I’m told that we Californians talk out of both sides of our mouths, namely driving everywhere and then dumping on others for not buying organic.

Well, I may concede a bit about the driving.  When I lived in NYC I did not have a car.  Public transport is very good there, and having a car is of negative value in most areas.  I tell them I tried living here without a car for 5 years, but it was impossible given how spread out things are and how difficult it was to shop for food.  Supermarkets are not on every corner.

I further justify myself by pointing out that I bought a Honda Civic new in 1999, it has less than 50,000 miles on it, and continues to serve the needs of 4 people.

I suppose the bottom line is that I do what I can, and try to do more all the time.  I make choices based on information I may not have been cognizant of 10 years ago.  Now, the more I know, the more I want to learn.  Where food is concerned, I read labels and seek out information before I buy.  If that makes me a yahoo, then so be it.

I’m happy to say that many of us here in California and elsewhere are making incremental changes.

Some things are harder than others.  For example, until organic, grass-fed beef takes over a larger part of the market share and prices drop, I cannot afford to purchase it exclusively.  We don’t eat very much red meat, perhaps once a week, so I try to buy it 50% of the time.  Chicken – pretty much the same program; every other chicken I bring home is organic.  With pork, I buy Niman Ranch as often as possible.  Issues here are complicated, particularly with beef.  People in the US are accustomed to the flavor of grain fed beef – mostly in the form of feed lot beef – but are not knowledgeable about its production.  Many say they don’t care, but I bet they would if they saw things first-hand.

I made a full transition to organic eggs.  They taste much better and I feel good about not increasing demand for the crueler product.  I’m happy to say that a non-organic egg has not entered chez Renate for 5 years.  Even Costco now carries organic eggs in 18-egg packs.

I try to buy local, organic produce, whenever possible, and shop for fruits and veggies almost exclusively at farmer’s markets and stores that are careful about what they offer, like Berkeley Bowl.  This is a no-brainer.  If you don’t want synthetics in your fruit salad, then buy organic, or from local farms that use natural pesticides and fertilizers, even if they’re not certified as organic.  Ask!

There are some “green” things I started doing that actually save me money and make life easier.

I buy in bulk and store in air-tight, food-grade, NSF approved, plastic containers.  You have no idea how much easier it is to work in the kitchen when you don’t have to futz with bags of flour and sugar.  Costco, Smart & Final and 99 Ranch serve me well.  I was even able to buy a two-pound package of Red Star active dry yeast at S&F for $5.49.  Hello!  Those little 3-packs can go for $2.50!  Not only will you save money, but there will be less packaging for the environment to have to contend with.  Here’s a photo of a portion of my pantry.  Popcorn, brown sugar, raw sugar, bread flour, AP flour, whole wheat four, brown Jasmine rice, iced tea bags, yeast – all there.

Food stored in plastic containers - bought in bulk

We also use hot and cold travel cups that look disposable.  The hot cups are porcelain with silicone tops and sleeves, and the cold cups are non-BPA plastic with a screw-on lids and plastic straws.  We take home-brewed coffee and iced tea out the door and save a small fortune without generating plastic trash from take-out iced lattes.  Sure, we buy coffee out sometimes, but as a treat.  The Eco-First cold drink cup is from Copco, and costs about $7.99.  The Eco Cup for hot beverages is from Decor Craft Inc., and sells for about $10.

enviro cups 5-10

You might also want to start using some of the phosphate-free, enviro-friendly products for your dishwasher (and clothes washer, for that matter).  Not only are many of these fully biodegradable and biorenewable, they’ll help prevent suds-lock.  My Costco now even carries Ecover dish tablets, a product I love.

box of ecover dishwasher tabs

I also stay away from disposable wipes, and use one of the “green” spray cleaners and a cloth that resists bacteria, which I wash along with the rest of my laundry.  You can pick up a container of Costco’s version of a friendly cleaner, if you want the most bang for your buck.  It comes with a spray bottle and you can dilute it.  Just shy of 1 and 1/2 gallons, it’ll last forever.  If you’re a purist, and want little more than pure soap suspended in water, look for products at a place like Berkeley Bowl.  Sometimes you do want something like this, as I do for my stall shower, which my dog visits daily to lick water off the tile.

costco multipurpose enviro-friendly cleaner

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that we should all think about this stuff and do what we can.  Start with a few easy things and go from there.

Not destroying the environment, not running through every natural resource we have, and keeping harmful things away from and out of our bodies are always good, no matter what you think about global warming.

Savory Oatmeal for Dinner!

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Does this look like a bowl of oatmeal? Well, it is!

Does this look like a bowl of oatmeal? Well, it is!

When I first came out with my savory oatmeal recipes, friends thought I was crazy.  Yeah – crazy like a fox.

The only reason people look at you like you have 35 heads when you serve oatmeal with ham and cheese is because it’s customary in the US to have it for breakfast – and to have it sweet.  Well, I don’t like it sweet.  And I don’t like it much plain.  Enter my plan to treat it like any other grain – which it is.

The one problem, if you can call it that, is the mushy texture.  No getting around that, but you can minimize it by using slow-cooking oats, and employing other ingredients that add some contrast.

The two recipes I came up with may be modified to your liking (and I encourage that!), but the oatmeal served with assorted toppings is best cooked only with chicken stock, and the version that includes cheese needs some milk and butter.  Makes sense, since the latter should turn out creamy.  You can use water in place of stock, of course, but it’ll be less savory.  Use a good, organic, low-salt stock if you don’t make your own.  A cheap, salty stock will taste terrible in this dish, so just…don’t.

Avocados are looking beautiful now at Berkeley Bowl, Whole Foods, Monterey Market and Raley’s, and I’ve even been able to get some decent tomatoes, so it’s a good time to try this frugal, healthy dish.  Just make sure to use high-quality, ripe fruit.  Don’t forget that avocados and tomatoes are both fruit!  Organic is best, if you can swing it.

I’ll give you the ham and cheese recipe, too, which you should try one rainy day.  It looks like you won’t have to wait until next winter for that, given the weather here in the Bay Area!

Don’t be put off.  My family loves this stuff.  My Mother-in-Law won’t eat it any other way, in fact.  You have to at least try it.

Oatmeal with Avocado, Tomato and Sea Salt
   Serves at least 6 as a full meal

4 cups thick-cut oatmeal (not instant – the slowest cooking kind you can get)
2 quarts organic, low-salt, chicken stock
Pinch of salt
2 large, ripe, Hass avocados, cubed
2 large, ripe, good tomatoes, cubed
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Coarse sea salt

1)  Add oatmeal, pinch of salt, pepper and chicken stock to heavy guage dutch oven or similar vessel and stir to combine
2)  Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer
3)  Cover and cook to desired consistency, stirring often, especially when the mass starts to thicken (I cook for 20 minutes when using the really thick oats)
4)  Spoon into deep serving bowls
5)  Top with avocado, tomato and a couple cranks of sea salt

Note that I sometimes add cubed, leftover chicken breast before the avo and tomato, as in the photo, but this is optional.

Ham & Cheese Oatmeal
   Serves at least 6

4 cups thick-cut oatmeal (not instant – the slowest cooking kind you can get)
1 quart organic, low-salt, chicken stock
2 cups milk
2 cups water
2 cups finely cubed cooked ham
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1 1/2 – 2 cups aged (or extra sharp, at least) white Cheddar cheese in small cubes.  Use good, natural cheese!

1)  Add oatmeal and all liquids to heavy guage dutch oven or similar vessel and stir to combine
2)  Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer
3)  Cover and cook to desired consistency, stirring often, especially when the mass starts to thicken (I cook for 20 minutes when using the really thick oats)
4)  Stir in pepper, butter and ham and allow to cook for another 30 seconds
5)  Remove from heat and stir in cheese, but do not mix it in too much because you want to wind up with pockets of melted cheese
6)  Cover and allow to sit for a couple of minutes
7)  Serve in deep bowls under a couple of over-easy eggs, if you want to be fancy about it

Warm Roasted Brussels Sprouts Salad

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warm brussels sproats salad with pine nuts and nut oil

I love a warm salad during summer.  It can sit out on the counter while your meat or tofu grills and be the better for it.

I make these salads a little luxurious, too, by breaking out my pricey specialty oils, like walnut and hazelnut.  Sticking to fresh produce and a simple preparation allows the flavor of the oil to shine.

One salad I’ve honed combines Brussels sprouts, pine nuts and a vinaigrette made with orange juice, hazelnut oil and a little onion powder.  Onion powder is one of those oddball things that adds complexity and prevents blandness, especially with concoctions containing citrus juice.  Don’t substitute raw onions -they won’t work the same way.

Now, not everyone likes Brussels sprouts, so feel free to substitute green beans.  If you like these cabbage creatures, however, you’ll love the way this salad provides a little sweetness and nuttiness to balance their strength and bitter notes.

I generally make this when Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market have beautiful, fresh Brussels sprouts with tight heads.  The fewer stray leaves you have for this recipe the better, but nothing’s a show-stopper.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts Salad
Serves 6

2 pounds Brussels sprouts
Scant 1/4 cup canola oil
Sea salt
3 tablespoons pine nuts

For vinaigrette:
2 or 3 tablespoons roasted hazelnut or walnut oil*
1/4 cup fresh orange juice (from sweet oranges – not too tart)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

1).  Whisk together ingredients for vinaigrette and set aside.  Don’t worry about the lack of salt.
2).  Toast pine nuts quickly in a saute pan.  Keep them moving over a medium-low flame.  You know how to do this.  Move to a small bowl and set aside.
3).  After you clean and trim sprouts, steam them for a minute or two, depending upon size, and then plunge into cold water to stop the cooking process.  Dry thoroughly (this is important!) and cut in half, lengthwise.  You can roast them without par-cooking; try it both ways and see what you like best.
4).  Toss sprouts with canola oil and a generous number of cranks of sea salt on a sheet pan.  When coated, arrange them cut side down.
5).  Roast at 400 F. until you get some browning action on the cut side, but you don’t want them to overcook.  Sometimes this takes 10 minutes, sometimes 20, like if I’m working with Rambo-sized vegetables.  Once they are just tender, remove them to a nice, large bowl regardless of how they look.
6).  Pour vinaigrette over Brussels sprouts and toss to coat.
7).  Taste and adjust seasonings.
8).  Allow to sit on counter for a good 45 minutes, tossing every now and then.
9).  Top with pine nuts right before you serve.

*This can be expensive, like $15-for-a-small-bottle expensive.  Sometimes the people from La Tourangelle are at Costco selling an assortment pack of three 8.5 ounce bottles of oil, usually hazelnut, almond and walnut, for $20.  This is a steal.  Keep it in the fridge – this is a must!