Handy Kitchen Hint - Yogurt Cheese

I don't believe in low-fat yogurt. Or worse, non-fat yogurt. It is a tool of the devil.

The only yogurt that enters my home is Straus Family Creamery Organic Whole Milk Yogurt or its not-so-secret cousin, Trader Joe's European-Style Thick & Creamy Oraganic Whole Milk Yogurt.

As a secret member of the amazing Margaret Fox's (Cafe Beaujolais Cookbook)Lily Gilder's Society, I can't leave my fabulous whole-milk yogurt alone, but must further creamify it by draining off the water.

You can do this any number of ways - tying it in cheesecloth and hanging it from the sink handle (bad in warm weather), or putting it into a cloth in a colander in a bowl in the fridge, but I have a super-easy tool for making labneh, or thick yogurt: the salad spinner.

I line the spinner basket with a clean cloth dishtowel, dump the yogurt in, and let it drain into the bottom of the salad spinner in the fridge. This has the advantage of fitting together well and having a lid.

6 to 12 hours later, yum, there's your yogurt "cheese." Now just add some thin-sliced cucumbers and snipped fresh dill and you have a tasty tzatziki.

How my brain works

Proof that I have a very odd mental illness...

I have gotten some great cookbooks for review from DK Publishing including the lovely Spain and the World Table.

I have been keeping the cookbook in the bathroom for the past few weeks, where I get to look at it 30 seconds at a time.

The other day when I first awoke, I looked at a recipe for saffron consomme, which sounded amazing. I have never been able to make a consomme because I feel so guilty, boiling up all those ingredients and THROWING THEM AWAY to make a clear, flavorful soup.

The whole idea behind consomme is to get it as clear as crystal, which isn't always easy, and chefs go to great lengths, including refining the soup with egg shells, which collect stray bits of protein and fat.

This recipe is no different. I looked at the ingredient list and it included all the usual suspects - meat bones, veg - but it also contained more than half a pound of foie gras.

I stumbled out of the bathroom, stunned.

All day long I was plagued by the idea that a chef had come up with a recipe where you take foie gras that runs over $100/lb, cook it and throw it away.

Never mind that I do not eat meat. Or that even if I ate meat, I would never eat diseased goose liver.

It still galled me that the recipe expected you to make a consomme of foie gras. I honestly obsessed about it.

When I got home, I saw that my bleary early morning brain hadn't absorbed all the recipe. The foie gras was to be cut into cubes and served in the bottom of the soup bowls.

Suddenly, I felt better. Now anyone spending $50 on diseased poultry livers for this recipe would get to enjoy the full effect of chewing and tasting them.

And that, my friends, is how I am sick in the head.

More specialized dishes - aceitunas

My love for olives is unbounded.

Nicoise, picholines, arbequinas, kalamatas, manzanillas...I love them all.

Knowing this, my friend Stacy got me this nifty snack dish at the Oakland Friends of the California Museum sale, an annual treasure bonanza.


The painting on the bottom says "Aceitunas," which means "olives" in Spanish. I had always thought it was "Olivos" because my dad is from Los Olivos, but that means "olive trees."

The larger vase-shaped thing on the side is labeled "Huesos" or "bones" for the pits. Ah, the wonderful economy of Spanish. The annoying hard thing in the middle of a fish is a bone, so why not call an olive pit a bone too? Makes sense to me.

The smaller thing says "palillos" or "little sticks" for used toothpicks. This is a party dish!

I don't have parties very often, but I eat olives all the time. I put them in the dish, toss some crackers and a few nuts and maybe a piece of cheese in, too. Then I have myself a little party and pretend I am watching the sunset in Spain.

Book Review: Grilled Pizzas and Piadinas

So the nice people at DK Publishing sent me a free copy of "Grilled Pizzas and Piadinas" by Craig W. Priebe and Dianne Jacob to review.

(I wanted to add an image of the cover, but for some evil reason, it won't upload).

First of all, I learned something: a piadina is an Italian sandwich kinda like a pita sandwich, but using a folded-over thin pizza crust as the bread. Looks like yum.

In fact, most of the recipes look like yum, too. Priebe obviously knows his way around a pizza, having owned C.K.'s Grilled Pizza in Chicago for 7 years. His recipes are inventive and fun, running the gamut from traditional (Pizza Margherita) to the exotic (The Venezuelan pizza - chicken and plantain with coconut sauce).

He has perfected a technique that I am sure yields great pizza. He gives dough-making instructions and then has an extensive section of dough-grilling possibilities using a barbecue, panini maker, even a fireplace grill.

Basically you grill the dough, top it, grill some more and then finish in the broiler to cook the toppings just right.

I admit that I have not tried these recipes yet because I am waaay too lazy. The chances of me making dough, making toppings (many of which require pre-cooking, marinating or other steps) making a fire, (first I would have to buy a BBQ) waiting for the right heat, grilling the dough, moving the coals to one side, topping and grilling the pizza, THEN broiling it....It is all too much for me.

Maybe when I have that cute little soiree on the patio for a dozen friends. First I have to build the patio, though.

(To Priebe's rvedit, he does give alternatives to make the technique easier - buying prepared dough, for instance - but you can tell he is really in love with doing it his super special way).

This book would be great for an obsessive barbecue hound, that brother-in-law who is always trying to perfect the most delicious party food. If you get it for him, invite me over. This stuff sounds great.

The necessity of a good asparagus platter

I have a small kitchen and don't have much specialized cooking equipment or dinnerware. But one thing I always look forward to getting down from the high shelf is the asparagus platter, for that means that spring is here!

The plate is designed for steamed asparagus. The little impressions of asparagus on the plate allow any clinging water to channel away from the spears. And the pocket on the side is for delicious sauce.

My favorite way of making asparagus is to roast it under the broiler or in a hot oven. Coat the spears with a little olive oil, put them under the broiler and turn them as they start to get brown and spotty. Take them out when they have a few brown spots all over. I like the big fat juicy ones.

For sauce I have recently become addicted to mayo with a little Smoked Spanish Paprika mixed in. Ok, a lot of Smoked Spanish Paprika (I use about 1/2 tsp to every 2 tbsp of mayo). It tasted better if you make the sauce a few hours before so the paprika can meld with the mayo. It is also a pretty pink red color.