San Francisco « (y)our food choices™

Class is now in session.

We did it! Our first, er, second cooking class (thanks Paul) seems to have been a success. With a sold out group of eight people, mostly friends of our friend and principal marketer Kathleen (thanks!), we were measuring, stirring, kneading, baking, and eating our way through some basic baking techniques. We worked our way through a no-knead bread, a quick flat bread, pizza, and soda bread, while at the same time discussing the differences in yeasts: wild, cake, active, and instant; and flours: hi-gluten, all-purpose, cake, whole wheat, and more; and discussing the proper way to measure flour if you don’t happen to have a scale to weigh it. In the two-hour class, which happened to run overtime (sorry), we did it all.

In homage to San Francisco

Now the real test of success will be determined by how everyone’s bread turns out today. To all of our new friends, once you have baked your loaf of bread and your pizza, please take a picture and post it to our facebook page. We can’t wait to see how they worked for you. And for those traveling today, let us know if the dough survived a couple days in the fridge or freezer.

We’ll be teaching the Bread Baking 101 hands-on demonstration again on Tuesday, May 10 and again on Tuesday, May 24, at Velcrow Studio (or is it Salon, Zannah?), from 6:30 – 9:00 pm.

Cheers,
Jason & Steve

The budding bakers.

Healthy and easy to make. It's time for some orange and black.

Every once in a while something truly inspired comes together without much thought. Maybe it has to do with last week’s Halloween celebration or maybe it has to do with the Giants crushing the Rangers in the World Series that made us think of black and orange. Tonight’s dinner consisted of our last piece of halibut from this summer’s catch in the bay, some left over mashed sweet potato and a little inspiration. It ended up being our tribute dish to the San Francisco Giants and their awesome World Series win. A reduction of balsamic vinegar with a little soy sauce drizzled at the end was all this dish needed to go from bland to fantastic.

The recipe for this dish is so simple that it’s a little silly to write it out, but here it is:

Seared halibut with sweet potatoes and balsamic reduction

2 sweet potatoes

2 pieces firm white fish (e.g., halibut or sea bass)

Olive oil

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Salt and pepper

Bake the sweet potatoes in a 450 degree oven until tender, approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Allow to cool and peel or scope out the orange flesh into a bowl. Mash and season with salt and pepper.

After potatoes are made, salt the fish, heat a skillet over medium high heat, add the olive oil and sauté the fish for two minutes per side (more or less depending on the thickness of the fish).

While the fish is cooking, reduce the balsamic vinegar over high heat in a small skillet until caramelized. Watching the pan constantly to avoid burning. Add the soy sauce and place off heat until ready to assemble. Reheat briefly before serving.

Place the fish on top of the potatoes and drizzle a small amount of the balsamic reduction on top of the fish and around the plate. Enjoy!