Smorgasburg                                                                                                                

  

      Ramen Burger from Ramen 

      Burger

 

      People's Pops Lavender Plum 

      Shaved Ice

  

      Blue Marble's Tent 

                                                      

  
    

Three days ago, I was on an all-day field trip to the Newtown Creek water treatment plant. My science teacher, Ms.Reiss, decided that  we should stop for jelly donuts. Unfortunately, she had no idea where to buy the supposedly best jelly donuts in Greenpoint. A brave student clad in shining armor stepped forward. "I know the way, Ms. Reiss!" she exclaimed. Through the boiling hot streets 32 students and 2 chaperones trudged. By the time they all finally reached Syrena's, they were all gasping for breath, sweating bullets, and their mouths watered for Sprite and donuts. They all thunked inside, thinking that the wait was over. Alas, no. After waiting in line for 20 minutes 32 students, 2 chaperones, and countless jelly donuts sat down at 4 tables and began to eat.

THE END 

Photos, anyone? 

  

Hi everyone! Today is a very special day. Today. Is. NATIONAL HAMBURGER DAY!

I don't think I know anyone who dislikes hamburgers besides a couple of pescatarians and a vegan.
I love hamburgers, so this is what I am going to write about.

Hamburgers are really pretty easy to make, so I won't give you a recipe. I will, however, give you my mom's recipe for turkey burgers.


She says:
"Ground turkey, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of sesame oil, and a bunch of sesame seeds. Then you form them into burger shapes, and you cook them in a hot skillet, like another burger."

She usually puts Sriracha on them, but I just like ketchup.

http://www.fastcoexist.com

I've been gone for so long! (At least it felt like it.) But since last time I have eaten many things, so I have lots to talk about. The first thing I want to tell you about is some really cool salad dressing that I made. There are two ingredients; heavy cream and vinegar. In other words, curdledness. You are probably thinking "gross"!  (Although, if you are some sort of food adventurer, cottage cheese expert or food writer, you might have said "I'll give it a try", "Mmm hmm" or "I should write about that"  before you thought anything else. I thought "COOL", then "GROSS" then "BLOG."

Here is a picture:

Last night, I made blackberry fool. I was inspired by the charming and beautiful picture book A Fine Dessert, by Emily Jenkins and Sophie  Blackall. The book includes the stories of mothers and daughters from 1710, 1810, and 1910, as well as that of a boy and his father in 2010, and a recipe.  What do these stories have in common? One sweet treat!

 This is the recipe (as written in the book):

 Blackberry Fool: A Recipe

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2-1/2 cups fresh blackberries (Other berries will do- but the fool won't have such a nice purple color; frozen berries will work, though fresh are nicer.)
1/2 cup sugar, divided in two
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups heavy cream

Find an adult to cook with you.

Mash the berries with a potato masher or a large fork. If you've got a food processor, you can use that. With clean hands, press the crushed berries through a sieve to remove the seeds. Sprinkle the fruit with 1/4 cup of the sugar. Stir.

In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, the vanilla, and the cream. Using a whisk or whatever kind of beater you have, whip the mixture until it makes soft peaks, but not stiff ones.

Fold the sugared berries into the whipped cream. Taste it to see if it's sweet enough. Add more sugar if you need it. There should be streaks of white and purple.

Refrigerate for 3 hours or more.

Eat! And don't forget to lick the bowl.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So, I followed the recipe mostly, although I forgot I could use my hands for straining, and spent 45 minutes with a spoon. I also didn't refrigerate for 3 hours. I did for about an hour, and the fool got pleasingly stiff, but luckily not frozen. If you don't have 3 hours +, it's ok to refrigerate it for less time. But you do need it to get cold, otherwise it is a mess of flop.

If you are curious about the word "fool", and you have a copy of The Oxford Companion to Food, look for it under f. It's actually quite interesting to read.

Hello! Because it is supposed to snow tomorrow in Brooklyn, instead of writing about springy food to eat, I will be writing about Americas favorite snowy day drink: hot chocolate. I can't remember where I heard this (or maybe I read it somewhere) but SOMEWHERE I learned that there is a different between hot chocolate and hot cocoa. (Yes, there really is a difference, I am not just making this up.) Hot chocolate is made with milk, whereas hot cocoa, is mostly water and cocoa powder. It is disturbing to me that anyone would want to drink chocolate-flavored water, but in the interest of cutting down on our methane production, I appreciate the effort.

One other thing I have been wondering recently is: what is the difference between warm chocolate milk, and hot chocolate? If you have any clue leave a comment.

Spring has sprung! (Not in NYC of course.) The first things that come to my mind when I think Spring are 

1) Bunnies 

2) Flowers 1

3) Farmers Market 

And when I think farmers market, I think 

1) Salad

2) Salads 

3) Many Salads

I think it would be slightly strange of me to give you a salad recipe, but I will provide you with a few simple salad formulas. 

Salad 1: Very Simple 

 

Math Form 

Greens + Olive Oil + Vinegar + Salt = Salad 

Physics Form 

G20OlVS2

Salad 2: Still Simple 

Math Form 

Greens + Fruit (by Fruit, I mean vegetables) + Dressing of Choice = Salad 

Physics Form 

G15Fr10D

Salad 3: Not Just Vegetables (Recipe for Magic Salad) 

Math Form 

Canned Tuna + Boiled Potatoes + Lettuce + Optional Tomatoes + Olives + Optional Anchovies + Olive Oil = Magic Salad 

Physics Form 

CtPb5L5(T5)O4(A3)Ol

On Wednesday, I baked peanut butter cookies for a bake sale at school. I completely forgot about my blog, or taking pictures of my cookies, but this morning I remembered! (But unfortunately, no pictures.) According to my friends who were tending the bake sale, my cookies completely sold out, and Mr.Osborne (a seventh grade math teacher) bought four.  I thought I would share the recipe with you guys so maybe you can sell them at school bake sales. (Or eat them all yourself...)

Ingredients:
1 egg                                                                                                      
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter (whichever kind you like)                      
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Procedure:
Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl, until you can't see any of the egg anymore. Mold into balls the size of small ping pong balls (for lack of a better phrase) and place them on a buttered baking sheet. 
Take a fork, and squish the balls of dough one way with the tongs, and the other way to make a lattice-type pattern. Bake your cookies in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. 

History of Meals on Saturday

 <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Hi guys! My mom gave me the idea this morning to research what people historically ate on Saturdays. So I did a little searching, and this is what I found out:

In Colonial times (in America), at noon on Saturdays, beans were sent to the baker, to bake in his oven. On Sunday morning, the beans (now bean porridge) were brought back to customers with some brown bread. You ate gruel if you were so poor you had to water down your porridge so it lasted longer.

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Information from http://colonial-american-life.blogspot.com

More Pie!

It's March! And National Banana Cream Pie Day! I found a few recipes online, but i'm sick, so I haven't been able to try these. If you try one, please let me know how it was, and why you did or didn't like it. Click Banana for the first recipe, Cream for the second, and Pie for the third.  Also check out epicurious for more recipes for anything. (If you haven't already.)
                             

                                foodnetwork.com

It's National Clam Chowder day! Click recipe for a recipe I found on epicurious. I unfortunately did not have time to test out because I had loads of homework last night. If you try this recipe and like it, leave a comment!

Hello everybody, and Happy National Cherry Pie Day! I didn't have time to make a cherry pie today and it is not cherry season anyway. Although I couldn't make one, I found a great recipe in a book called First Prize Pies, by Allison Kave. Here it is:

Sour Cherry Pie

Ingredients
(Pie Crust of Choice)
Filling-
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup slivered almonds, chopped or ground in the food processor
2 pounds pitted sour cherries
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
Egg wash or milk for glaze
Raw sugar for garnish

Procedure
Preheat oven to 425 F. Roll out half the dough into a circle about 11 inches in diameter. Transfer it to a 9-inch pie plate. Trim overhang to 1 inch and refrigerate crust.
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and almonds. In a large bowl, toss together the cherries and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Just before adding the filling to the pie plate, toss the fruit in the brown sugar mixture. Brush the  rim of the bottom crust with egg wash or milk.
Put the bottom crust on a baking sheet. Pour the almond mixture into the crust. Pour the filling on top. Roll out the second half of the dough, cut it into lattice strips, and arrange them over the filled pie. Trim the edges and tuck the top crust over the rim of the bottom crust to form a tight seal. Crimp the edge in whatever pattern you like. Brush the top crust with egg wash or milk and sprinkle it with raw sugar.
Bake the pie for 20 minutes, turning it once, halfway through. Lower the temperature to 350 F and bake it for 30 or 40 minutes more, until the crust is golden and fully baked and the juices have thickened. Remove the pie to cool completely, at least 1 hour.

This pie can be refrigerated up to one week, covered in plastic wrap. Let it come to room temperature before serving, or warm in a low oven. It can be kept frozen for up to 2 months: Wrap it in plastic and then foil, and let it come to room temperature before serving.

A collection of short stories about food in reverse chronological order, 

 almost as told to my class by our Social Studies teacher Ms. Catapano. 

"Sammiches"

Back before the Greeks colonized the European coastline, they had only grapes and olives. The grapes were good for making wine, and the Greeks made olive oil with the olives. They were pretty happy eating olives and drinking wine but they had no wheat or barley. With no wheat or barley they couldn't make bread, and without bread, they couldn't make sammiches. And they were starving because they had no sammiches.  

I realized I was feeling hungry. So I went home, and I realized I had no bread for sammiches. So I called Daughter No. 2 and she came ovah with some bread that had to go in the freezer. Some kinda thing with no preservatives because Daughter No. 2 is on a bit of a health kick. So I put the bread in the freezer, so as not to hurt her feelings, and went out to buy some regular bread for my sammiches. 

Salmonella Poisoning 

One day, I was doing paperwork in my room, and I was starving. So I went over to the deli and got a coffee and this little tiny cake. When I got back to my homeroom,  I bit into the cake and it was raw. It had not been baked and I thought to myself, I could have died from Salmonella poisoning. 

In the Desert 

The other day I was leaving work around 6:00, and I was very very hungry. So I started walking and it was so cold and windy and I felt just like the Jews starving in the desert. So I walked and walked and walked, and when I got home, I had no food in the house. I looked in the fridgerator and I had some left ovah Challah bread. And so I went into the closet and found some string beans and potatoes. And so I cooked that all up and then I was not starving anymore. 

                                     

http://visittehamacountry.com

Happy Valentines Day everyone! I don't know how many of you who are reading this have a fondue pot, but if you don't, you should definitely get one. Here of some pictures of my chocolate fondue on Friday night:

Here is the recipe: 

Ingredients

1 package of  dark or milk fondue chocolate 

1/2 cup heavy cream (more if needed)

1 tsp unsalted butter 

The other day, I was just sitting around and I decided I wanted to bake something. At first I was going to bake gingerbread. But then I decided I didn't want to. So I looked and looked through a bunch of cookbooks, and finally came across a recipe for Dutch seed cookies. I had eaten them before and really liked them. Here is the book I got the recipe from, and cookies!

   

Small Seed Cakes 
Makes 4 dozen 
Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter 
                    1 cup sugar
                    2 eggs 
                    2 cups flour 
                    1 tablespoon caraway seed 
                     (bruised with in a mortar with a pestle)
Cream the butter with the sugar. Add eggs one by one and incorporate thoroughly. Add seeds and flour a little at a time, stir well. Use two teaspoons to shape the cookies about the size of a nutmeg and place them on a buttered baking sheet . Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, until the rims are browned. 

                                                  www.123rf.com

                                                                                            

Happy National Bagel and Lox Day! Personally, I love bagels and lox, but  there is really no better place to get it than Brooklyn. And where else but Shelsky's Jewish appetizing shop. Luckily, I live only a few blocks away.

It also just so happens that Shelsky's has this totally amazing thing called salmon cream cheese.  I'm not kidding. Plus everything bagel.  I always get the same thing, and never get tired of it. It's that delicious. It just occurred to me that the word delicious actually has the word deli in it. It's meant to be. Here is my bagel in a before and after...


                                                                                


                                                         

                                                                                          Shelsky's Pickles

 Go to nationaldaycalander.com for more random holidays to celebrate!