Breakfast: June 2003 Archives
I think two of the cookbooks I'm informally testing are keepers. (Although did anyone who knows me really think I would be getting rid of anything?)
We had Oatmeal Pancakes from Elizabeth Alston's book yesterday, and I was very pleased with them (they'd be good for people who are trying to avoid refined carbohydrates, too, I think, except for the sugar - I wonder if you can leave it out?). You start by pulverizing 2 cups of uncooked oatmeal into a flour in the blender or food processor along with 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Then you add 2 eggs, 1 cup plain yogurt and 2/3 cup milk and blend until smooth. The batter's really thin at this point, but you leave it set for 5 minutes and it thickens up nicely. The finished pancakes have a pretty brown color and a nice, hearty texture without being the kind of pancakes that sit at the bottom of your stomach all day. I went ahead and made the extra batter into pancakes and froze them. I just pop them in the toaster when I feel like having them for breakfast.
On Friday, I used Bittman's technique for pan-frying salmon fillets and then finishing them in the oven, and, although the apartment smelled like fish all weekend, we did like the crispy results. I'll try a different spice mix, though. I used 5-spice powder and really didn't like the flavor.
It was overcast and rainy, but the lines were still long at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party that Todd and I went to yesterday. It was out in front of Blue Smoke, and 27th street was blocked off between Park Avenue and Lexington. Live jazz, crowds, smoke and some good barbecue.
The organizers had invited award-winning barbecuers from North Carolina, Illinois, even Nevada. We bought 15 tickets ($1 per ticket with each plate costing $6; the food booths wouldn't take cash) and started at the shortest line, sharing an order of Chipotle Chicken Wings and Potato Salad from Blue Smoke. The sauce was good, smokey and spicy, but the wings were kind of anemic. While we ate that, we stood in a long line in the rain for pork shoulder and baked beans made by Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que from Alabama. The shredded pork, served on seeded buns, was the softest meat I've ever had, but it needed the sauce for flavor (which it definitely had).
Then I had to run back to the booth for more tickets while Todd stood in another long line so we could try the food from Kreuz Market from Lockhart, Texas. (These lines were such a tease, because they all snaked right up next to the smoke pits where the booth cooked the food you were standing in line to try.) I'm glad we did because the sausage with onions and sliced sweet n sour pickles on Sunshine white bread (I love it when what seems like a basic national packaged food becomes fundamental to a recipe for something fantastic) was the highlight of our day. The rain had stopped, so we squatted on the sidewalk to eat. Biting through the soft bread and then the crunchy skin of the spicy sausage, we listened to jazz with fellow urban dwellers willing to brave the rain for a bit of smoke on a city street.
