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Easy green bean salad

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Green bean salad

When you want to serve a large family or don’t mind leftovers and are in a pinch, this is what you want.  Easy and tastes good.  If you get all postal with me about the canned beans, feel free to use fresh – I won’t stop you.  This is where that $2.50 #10 can of Blue Lake green beans from Costco comes in.

Easy Green Bean Salad

1 #10 can (big, big can) of green beans (not French cut, please)
1/2 red onion, large, finely chopped
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup canola oil
About 3 T sugar
S&P

Intersperse the drained beans and chopped onion in a large, shallow bowl.  Set aside.  In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar and sugar, ensuring that all the sugar dissolves — you might have to leave it and come back to it a couple times.  Taste it.  You want the sugar to significantly cut the acidity of the vinegar so that it is sweet-sour.  Adjust as needed.  Whisk in a large pinch of salt and a couple big dashes of pepper.  Whisk in the oil.  You are making, basically, a watery vinaigrette.  Use more or less of each, as you like, but don’t make a traditional vinaigrette for this dish.  Adjust S&P.  Pour over the green beans and leave out for an hour.  Every 15 mins or so bring the beans from the bottom of the bowl to the top so they are all equally marinated.  If you use a large, stainless steel bowl, this will work well since you can take a large spoon and run it down the side to pull beans up from the bottom.  What you don’t want to do it create a mush, so be gentle.  If you are serving the next day just cover and pop in fridge.  Take out a good hour before you serve so it is not ice cold.

Notes:  Better the next day and good with tuna sandwiches.

Whole Acme smoked whitefish at Costco for the holiday

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Just a quick note about my having seen and purchased whole smoked whitefish at the Richmond, California, Costco the other day.  My guess is that they are carrying this for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.   Recall that this Costco carried Acme Smoked Fish Corporation’s whole smoked whitefish and smoked whitefish salad for a couple of years, and then both products disappeared all of a sudden a few months ago, to my disappointment.  I wrote them a couple of cards about this, begging them to bring back the whitefish salad, at least, and to provide samples to shoppers because most people around here have no idea what this is and how good it tastes.

I was happy to see the whole whitefish, since I can make whitefish salad from it, but I am asking the people who monitor blogs on behalf of Costco (come on – you know you do this – there are numerous indicators) to ask the Richmond branch to bring back both products for the months of December and January.  Please.  I beg you.  Have a heart for this ex-New Yorker.

Now we can ring in 5770 in style!

Why you need a hand blender

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Hand blender

Word up:  part with the $20 it will take to get a hand blender, aka immersion blender, into the house.

There are things I can do easily with this guy that make it one of the most-used kitchen gadgets I own.  To be honest with you, I have two.  I got my father one some years ago and it came back to me when he passed away.  Thus, my own, which was stained red from a tomato product years ago, is used for things with natural dyes, and the other one is kept looking pretty.

Unless you plan on catering or otherwise making large quantities and/or feel more comfortable having something made by KitchenAid, I would not bother with the ~$50 KitchenAid model, though it is nice that its blending shaft is stainless steel and won’t turn purple or red, which the white ones will do, believe me, if you work with beets or pasta sauce.  I suggest you get the 200 watt Braun, which I have not been able to kill after years of hard use and dishwasher cleaning.  Given that the power (wattage) of the Braun and the KitchenAid (KHB100) is identical, the only thing you’ll give up is the stainless steel and about an inch of blending shaft length.  Note that the KitchenAid KBH300 costs about $100 but is the same blender with a boatload of attachments.  Since I have no intention of attempting to use my immersion blender for anything other than immersion blending, I don’t need all that stuff.

Here are a few things you can use this for:
1)  Thickening bean or veggie soups by blending all or part of the contents right in the pot
2)  Giving body to homemade tomato sauce so it’s not half tomato chunks and half liquid
3)  Blending thickening agents (and veggies cooked with meats) into cooking juices, which will result in smooth gravies
4)  Making cold sauces and spreads with things like roasted peppers, eggplants and nuts
5)  Making fresh mayonnaise
6)  Repairing broken sauces, like an anglaise
7)  Making baby food

The first item on the list is alone worth the cost of admission because it prevents the need to transfer hot liquid to and from a blender.

When you use a hand blender with hot liquids, just be sure to get enough immersion so you don’t splatter things all over yourself and get burned.  Practice with cold water, and try to use containers that give you height.  The little cup these units come with are great for blending small amounts of dressing, and you can stand the blender in the cup on your countertop when not in use.  The blade is on the end of a cylindrical piece that disattaches from the power unit, and can be cleaned in the top rack of a dishwasher.

I first used this tool in culinary school, though pro units are over three feet long and can puree gallons of soup quickly.  Professional cooks call these monsters “burr mixers, ” which may be an anglicized version of the brand name “Bermixer,” used by European manufacturer Dito Electrolux.  This is only a guess, and I’m trying to prove it.

For an interesting look at the invention and history of this appliance, check out the Bamix website.

Chalk up yet another great idea to the Swiss.

UPDATE on 28 September 2009:  I saw Cuisinart SmartStick handblenders for $30 at Costco today.  They have a stainless steel blending shaft and come with a bunch of attachments, though note that they are no more powerful (at 200 watts) and only a scant half an inch longer than the little Braun I discussed.

Lunch at Berkeley Bowl West

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Matthew at Berkeley Bowl West cafe

Berkeley Bowl West (920 Heinz, Berkeley) is a good place to have lunch, but we like to buy stuff in the market and bring it into the cafe, rather than buy cafe food.  The eating space is much nicer here than at the Shattuck location, because it’s in another building and you don’t have the hustle and bustle of shoppers all around you as you eat – though it does get crowded at lunch.

So far we have not been thrilled with the cafe food, but they may just need some time to work out kinks.  My Mom had a Cuban sandwich there a couple weeks ago that was so skimpy and cold (they never pressed or grilled the thing) I though she was going to have a conniption.  I dragged her back there when Matt and I went so she could see the kinds of things we select.

Here are the things we like:

1)  The store-made sushi, in particular the spicy tuna roll.
2)  The egg salad at the deli, which Matthew loves.  We get a container and then select a couple of rolls from the bread department to go with it.
3)  The turkey meatloaf from the deli counter.  The texture is gluey, but I like this stuff.  I swear there is the flavor of liver in there.  Despite the fact that many people in the food business never order meatloaf from anywhere (you never know what evils lurk in a product that is ground and formed), I get it here.
4)  The Chinese food at the hot food counter.  You can’t go wrong, for the most part.  The potstickers are pretty good.
5)  The pecan roll.  At a buck fifty, I can’t believe they even make money on this thing given the volume of pecans on top.  They can be had at the pastry counter and are usually in the cafe, too.
6)  A little piece of cheese from the cheese counter.  (This is another place the rolls come in into play…)

Take your goodies across the little divide to the cafe, grab some utensils and napkins and set up shop.  You may purchase a beverage, but we usually just have water.

Oh, before I forget:  the house-made potato chips at the cafe are to die for.  Even my Mom had to admit this.

Best Foods mayo substitute

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Jars of Best Foods and Raley’s mayo

Since Safeway stopped producing its Safeway Select* brand of real mayonnaise – which was almost a dead ringer for Best Foods/Hellmann’s – I have been looking for another alternate brand that is equally as good.  I finally found one:  Raley’s Real Mayonnaise.  It’s  a bit thicker than Best Foods, but is the real deal, and I think I will be buying this on a regular basis now, given that the (full) price is about $2.50.  It’s also an actual quart (32 ounces).  Since I want to punish Best Foods for downsizing their quart size to 30 ounces, I’ll be doing that in addition to saving money.

*Note that, in my opinion, the store brand of mayo that Safeway now sells is not very good.  It has those off-notes that other store brands have – sort of like wallpaper paste – and does not have a fresh, clean flavor.