Mc Mansions

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This blog was posted by co-owner of this blog, Daniel, accidentally instead of his real estate blog. I decided to leave this posting although this is not food blog. (FumikoB)

Irish Soda Bread

I made loaves of Irish soda bread from BBC website. I loved the results and friends who tried approved its taste. The bread was delicious with butter. However, Karen who is from Ireland told me it is wheaten bread not soda bread. According to her, north and south of Ireland people make soda bread differently.
I found a website about Irish soda bread: http://www.sodabread.us/
Real Irish may not call this soda bread. Still I like this recipe. Here is the recipe website :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23502908

Gaspar's Cooking class and dinner

My neighbor friend, Yami, took me to Gaspar's cooking class and full course dinner in Tuesday evening. Gaspar’s is the construction company specializing design/build/remodel houses. The attendants of the class were the employees, friends and their customers. The class was held at Gaspar’s office. There is a model kitchen installed in the office to show their customers appliances and building materials Gaspar’s use for their construction business.
When Yami and I entered to the Gaspar’s office, we were asked if we like to have red or white wine. I asked for red and Yami for white. The chef and instructor of the class was Incredible chef, Karen Rosenzweig ,(See http://www.incrediblechef.com/index.html) who is personnel chef. Karen offered us appetizer to start. It was baked Brie with Caramel with Walnuts or with cranberries served with crackers and slices of apples. The appetizer was very rich and delicious. She showed us how to prepare it. I already tried this appetizer recipe with my first home made puff pastry and brought it to the Irish dinner party. Every one who tasted it loved it very much. I thank Karen for this recipe.
After the instruction of this delicious appetizer, we learned about energy efficient and high BTU stove with the grill on the top. The next lesson was how to cook the entrée, baked chicken with tomatoes, olives and Mushrooms, Herbed couscous, and Grilled Zucchini with Feta and Mint. While we wait the dishes were ready to be served, we learned about the rest of the kitchen appliances, lighting, and environment friendly building materials. Karen grilled zucchini on the stove top grill and fry and baked the chicken using the stove and the oven installed at Gaspar’s.
Finally it was the dessert time! The dessert was old fashioned-shortbread. Karen showed how quickly the tasty short bread was prepared. We had hot freshly baked short bread. It was very tender and buttery bread. We could not resist several servings. I will try this recipe soon.
Karen was very knowledgeable and a good teacher. I liked her style of teaching and cooking.
I appreciate Gaspar’s and Yami who provided me a great time and opportunity to experience full course dinner with valuable cooking instructions from professional chef.

Japanese Breakfast Menu

<----Photo left doesn't include some dishes mentioned in the blog. This is my favorite simple Japanese Vegetarian breakfast.
I love Japanese breakfast. I was thrilled to be asked to create a Japanese breakfast menu. Japanese breakfast includes a lot of vegetables, fish, eggs, meats (bacon or ham), rice and Miso soup. I thought there should be choice of fish, meats, or vegetarian. The vegetable dishes on side can be the same in three menu items if they don’t contain any meat. I selected four vegetable dishes, the cooked spinach marinated with sweet sesame sauce, Nimono which is vegetables cooked in Japanese stock, fresh salad, and Tsukemono which is Japanese pickled vegetables. I included fresh fruit. The plate will be crowded with small portion of these things, choice of main dish, rice and Miso soup. Also I added Children plate as another menu item. Most children may not like Miso soup but rice balls and Bacon. I included these items and changed some of vegetables for Children’s plate.
My complete menu may not be used at the restaurant which asked me about Japanese breakfast menu. However, I enjoyed thinking and write down about what Seattleite will like in their Japanese breakfast and what I can introduce someone who have never been to Japan and try out something new. Japanese breakfast items above is very close what you find at Hotels in Japan and hopefully Seattleites try out these food and start eating Japanese breakfast. My another blog about Breakfast is found:
http://fumikob-foodtalk.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-breakfast-most-important-meal-of-day.html

Cooking project at St. Clouds

St. Clouds’ owners organize many volunteers to cook for homeless people once a month. (See St. Clouds website) I went to join February’s homeless cooking project. I was surprised to see so many volunteers cutting, chopping, and grilling vegetables and fruit, mixing seasoning for baked meats, making dessert and washing dishes. I met my neighbors and some people who came from Bellevue and Burien. A lady told me that she has been doing this for two years. I met high school and middle students who are in Spring break.
John Platt who is one of the owners of St. Clouds determines what to cook based on the food donations and instructs volunteers what to do. The results was full course menu which include salad made of spinach with cherry tomato and pear, roasted asparagus, Baked Mexican spiced pork and chicken, apple custard tart, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I was very impressed! All food was completed and packed and labeled to be carried away around 1:00PM to the 4 homeless shelters. I had exciting experience working together with many volunteers to cook nice meals. These meals will not only fill the stomachs of hungry people but also make them warm.

Last year I worked for JohnP to help cooking for two public schools found raising auction dinner. Please read my two blogs :
My experience working at a commercial kitchen
Garfield high school Auction dinner

VietnameseChicken Rice Soup

I decided to cook Vietnamese Chicken Rice soup for Teacher’s appreciation lunch at my son’s middle school. The soup is called congee in English. I saw how Congee was made at Club bamboo at ACRS and loved the taste and thought it is perfect to add to Teacher’s lunch menu. I searched the congee recipe which uses the same ingredients, ginger, lemongrass and chicken. I found it in Allrecipes.com.
Please see the site: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Vietnamese-Chicken-and-Long-Grain-Rice-Congee/Detail.aspx
The recipe looks good. However, I had to think how to bring the soup to keep it warm for teachers during 3 lunch periods. I neither wanted to carry boiling hot soup in the car nor half-way heated soup. I got an idea. Here is how I prepared and served the soup safe, hot and delicious.
The day before the lunch I cooked the chicken soup stock as the recipe, and cool it down quickly in shallow pan surrounded with ice. I remove the bone and separate the chicken meat to cool quickly, and stored cooled soup and the meat in the refrigerator. At the day, I cooked a small amount of rice with the some of the chicken soup and cool the rice. I chopped cilantro, lime, and chives. I carried all of cooked ingredients and condiments into the cooler with ice. Slow cooker will require too much time to heat up the content so I brought a large pot and Chinese portable gas burner.
My method worked well. The burner heated up soup quickly and I added cooked rice and chicken.
The teachers were happy to have this warm unusual Asian soup in addition to tasty bagels, salad, lasagna, and sweets. I loved the compliment from some of the teachers about the soup. The recipe was great and produced the superior soup. I like to thank to the owner of the original congee recipe.

Chinese New Years and other Celebrations

Last week, there were several celebrations. The first was the Chinese New Year’s day on January 26th. My favorite Tofu Company took this day off although Seattle international district seems to be quiet. Employees at ACRS celebrated New Year’s party for lunch. The club bamboo staff members helped cooking some Chinese dishes in addition to our duties cooking for seniors.
People celebrate the special occasion by sharing food with families and friends. Japanese celebrate New Years Day eating special food. For example, we have Black beans which pronounce KURO-MAME and MAME means healthy and eggs which is yellow (gold) and white (silver) and they are lucky color. Unfortunately I didn’t have an opportunity to ask someone at ARCS about special Chinese or Vietnamese New Year’s Day food.
On Wednesday, Rosita who is my fellow kitchen staff had a party to share her happiness to obtain her green card. Although I was not volunteering the day, I attended her celebration by accepting her invitation. Rosita was very happy surrounded by her favorite colleagues and her nephew.
On Thursday an employee of ARCS brought special Vietnamese dishes for kitchen staffs. The food was steamed dish made of rice flour, jacama, and etc and cooled and decorated with colorful toppings. It was served with sweet fish sauce and salad. They were very delicious. Please see photos of this pretty dish.
I think I gained my weight this week by having many delicious treats.