My new favorite thing!

bin dae duk. AKA veggie pancakes.

It’s my new favorite thing to cook. I soak about a half cup of split, dried mung beans, then puree them with two tablespoons of chopped onion, a quarter cup of soft tofu, and a clove of garlic. Season that up with some salt and pepper. Then it gets two eggs beaten in, a quarter cup of flour, and a ton of matchstick-sized vegetables. I usually go with lots of zucchini, carrot, kimchi, and green onions. If you dig meat, I’d bet my right hand that matchstick-ish pork belly would be a great add-in too.

The tofu, eggs, and flour aren’t traditional ingredients, if I’m remembering correctly. A more authentic bin dae duk would be far more grainy and dense in texture, and would probably include some seafood or meat. It would also have considerably less protein. I’m not a huge meat buyer since it’s such a pain to figure out how to eat all of it before it goes bad.  But I do love me some protein. Which is where all those bonus ingredients come in!

Even though I adore the taste and texture of the bin dae duk at my auntie’s or grandma’s, I’m becoming a rather avid fan of my version as well. Plus… I like protein.

Mmm Bolognese!

Whole wheat penne w/ homemade bolognese

I woke up with a craving for pasta. It’s my own fault for frequenting Food Porn Daily before bed… Geez. Bad idea much?

Anyway, after doing a buttload of dishes that accumulated during the week, I ventured out to Vons for some produce. What I got? Ground beef. Lots of fruit and veggies.

So it was getting to be lunchtime by the time I got home. I started some olive oil in a big ol’ pan, and browned up that beef while chopping up some mirepoix. Dumped that in. Seasoned that baby. Looked at the half bottle of wine I had on hand. I had intended on using a cup or so, but slip of the hand, and oh! In went the entire half bottle. Whoops. So I stirred in a good bit of tomato sauce, although I would have used paste if I had it, popped in some herbs and a bay leaf, and a while (and I mean a while) later, all that stuff came together into a meaty sauce. Then I cooked me up some whole wheat penne, and put the suckers together. Voila! Brunch is served! At… 1 pm. Whoops.

Craving satisfied.

Logical Progression

I’m home for a short while. It’s been an incredibly hectic first few days filled with my brother’s concerts, my cousin’s high school graduation, a family reunion, and various other functions in/around my parents’ house. Today, I found myself with some spare time. Finally.

I woke up at exactly 6. I haven’t been in the habit of doing that lately, but my dog stepped on me, so there we go. I woke up.

I moseyed my way downstairs, made a stop at the pantry, and decided that pancakes sounded good. A little bit of mixing and half an hour later, a fat stack of orange-cinnamon pancakes were sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be devoured. I made myself some tea, my dad made some coffee, and my entire family sat down for some breakfast. 6:45 a.m. My mom and I watched Good Morning America together, and she started bugging me about the lumps of unknown ingredients sitting in the freezer, ready to meet their maker. (Kraft?)

My family isn’t huge on cream cheese. For whatever reason, my parents have taken to spreading laughing cow cheese on bagels. So when I whipped up a cheesecake for some corporate potluck or something along those lines last Christmas, we had about half a Costco-sized box of cream cheese left over. I hate to waste food so… I froze it. I used bits of it over the first half of 2010. Some on the white pizza I made a few months back. Some for a cake frosting. But there were still two half-cup chunks in the freezer, and they were pretty sad looking. Ready for a pity killing.

Here’s the thing. I’ve never stuck with a cheesecake recipe. I’ve found some that I like, but none that I love. The one on the Philadelphia cream cheese box ended up tasting store-bought in a very unmemorable/generic way. Family and friends always seem to love it, but I’ve always been disappointed. So this one, I decided to wing.

Half a carton of light Daisy sour cream in the fridge (leftover from when I made spinach dip for my brother’s studio recital). About a cup (maybe a little more) of frozen cream cheese. FYI, cream cheese does not freeze particularly well. It won’t go bad in there, but the texture’s never quite the same. I didn’t mind that though. The dry ricotta-y consistency would serve my purposes just fine.

I creamed that sucker with three quarters a cup of sugar. The texture reminded me of raw chicken skin–not lumpy, but unappealingly bumpy. I added the zest of a lemon. Then I spotted an orange on the counter… “Eh…” I thought, “why not?” In went the zest of an orange as well. Fearing an overwhelmingly citrus-y cheesecake, I raided the pantry. In went a generous sprinkling of nutmeg and half a teaspoon of vanilla. Two eggs. I had a little taste test. Too sweet. The juice of half a lemon got squeezed into that, and it tasted about right to me. So I folded in a little flour, and poured it all into my everyday graham cracker crust (spiked with some cinnamon and nutmeg).

It’s baking in a 300 degree F oven right now. No water bath, sheerly because I’m feeling lazy. As obvious an add as it seems, I’ve never been one to add zest to cheesecake. This cheesecake could change my mind. That batter was pretty delicious… maybe that’ll be my new secret to cheesecake: freeze and thaw the cream cheese.

I may post pictures if this venture proves to be successful… We have some beautiful strawberries on hand. I think they’ll go great on top. Regardless of how happy or unhappy I am with this zesty little guy, I’m sure he’ll taste pretty good regardless, and I’m definitely looking forward to dessert tomorrow night

…but I’m still crossing my fingers that this will be the end of my journey for a cheesecake that is truly mine!

Bread Adventure. Breadventure.

Vanilla Challah: REDUX

I’ve made this sucker so many times I could probably write down the original recipe off the top of my head. So this time, I’m doing things a little differently. I’ve never attempted a challah with butter. I’ve always stuck with canola oil for the fat content of this sucker, but since I had some on hand, I decided to go for a medium between vegetable and butter: coconut oil.

It’s just barely solid at room temperature, and melts with just a touch of my hand. It’s also got this intoxicatingly sweet smell of coconutty goodness. Yumm!

I also went with kneading. It was hard to mix such a huge lump of starter and my egg-vanilla-sugar-coconutoil mixture with just utensils, so i dusted up a board with some flour, and kneaded away. (Kneading is nice when you’re a little high strung)

After I saw the familiar blisters just under the surface of the dough, I popped it into a box, and put it in the fridge. I’m  probably going to come home tonight, let it sit at room temperature for a little while, braid, refrigerate overnight, proof, and bake off early tomorrow morning.

What I’ve found is that bread can be very forgiving. I’m not making anything particularly finicky, and I’m not really adhering to a particular end result. So there we go. My “challah” will be what it will be, and I’m sure that even though I am making it around a busy schedule, it won’t fail me. Time isn’t a bad thing

Another Stab at Bread

I have this insatiable love of baking. It never fails to relieve stress in my life.

So using a bit of dough I saved from bread-baking over the weekend, I started a new dough. I let it sit out overnight, and was ecstatic to find that the dough had doubled by morning! I’ll keep saving bits of dough, and we’ll see how long I can keep this yeast culture going. It’s definitely a hobby I want to pursue and extend my knowledge in. For my first venture, I’ll be baking off a plain loaf, just for sandwich bread’s sake. Then I’ll attempt to duplicate last summer’s vanilla challah saga.

Here’s the thing: I’ve kind of fallen in love with the no-knead method of bread baking. Basically, instead of kneading like a madman, you let time and small amounts of yeast do the work for you. This technique is sooo pain free, and it produces this awesome texture in bread that I have never achieved in any other manner of baking. Seriously.

So instead of the standard mix it up and knead away method, I’ll be trying to incorporate my new ways into a much beloved recipe.

I’ll probably begin with the starter dough I use for all my recent bread endeavors, letting that rise for a few hours at room temperature, then transferring to the fridge (to sit and flavor up while I slave away at school). Since the mature starter is pretty much a goopy mess, I think I’ll crack six eggs or so into it, add a generous half a cup or so of sugar, and a tablespoon of vanilla extract (would use a vanilla bean if they weren’t so expensive). The eggs will give it the classic challah-y texture. After that, I’ll add flour until the correct consistency is reached. With any luck, another couple hours of rising will be sufficient to develop glutens in the flour I added. Then all there’s left to do is braid, proof, and bake!

I love challah because it makes such a delectable french toast. Plus it’s a great snacking bread, and I wouldn’t feel so bad about munching down on a few slices of bread knowing I made it myself. I also find that it’s an acceptable substitute for brioche as far as burger buns go! True story.

Will update on how that goes. Seeing as 10th week rehearsals/performances are stressing me out like no other, there will be many late night bread adventures to update on

How much…?

An interested study was cited in this article on Yahoo. The article claims that, based on a survey of 3,000 adults, the average cost of a woman’s outfit (including accessories) is right in the neighborhood of a whopping $1,500!

Seems a bit high of an estimate to me, especially when you consider there’s got to be plenty of Plain Janes, like myself, out there lowering the average with outfits that adds up to…

VS Underwear: $15
Adidas track pants: $40
AE top: $15
Rainbows: $40
White gold stud: $15
socks: $3
Jansport backpack: $20
Cell phone: FREE (retail value $200)
Wallet: $30
Rings: FREE (retail value est. $300)

TOTAL: $678

That’s not even half of the average. Granted if you take my cellphone and class choir rings out of the mix, the grand total slides down to $178. Even so, I would never have guessed that I carry hundreds of dollars worth of things on me just by getting dressed in the morning. I mean… that’s a pretty typical outfit for me: sweatpants and some random top. I would’ve thought the whole shebang would amount to a lot less than $700! I know it isn’t much to some people, but I think $700 is a big honkin deal.

I mean… who really thinks about how much their outfit cost? I know I hadn’t before I read that article. It’s surprising how quickly a few items of clothing add up, and how a typical wardrobe we label to ourselves as “the casual everyday outfit” is so much pricier than we’d chance a guess at (if we hadn’t taken some time to scrutinize the true value of our clothing). If this is just one area in which we severely underlook the value of things so mundane as a pair of sweatpants, a shirt, and some flip flops, what else are we missing? Part of me is terrified o know, but what, really, is the cost of living the way we do?

New Repertoire

Last week, I started working on Leonard Bernstein’s set of songs. (“Extinguish My Eyes” and “When My Soul Touches Yours”) I love the challenge of contemporary songs. While 18th century arias are beautiful and challenging in their own right, they’re so much more predictable. Plus… we’ve heard them all before. With composers like Bernstein and Charles Ives, you don’t really know what to expect. The meters change, and form is completely volatile. The lyrics are more abstract. There’s very little adherence to a single key. I love it! It’s so much fun

Reading new music has never been much of a challenge for me. But this stuff is exciting! There is no such thing as a “typical contemporary cadence.” There is no sense of the conventional in these relatively new works, and yet they are, in the words of Ted Mosby, “hauntingly beautiful.” Taking something that doesn’t align with the principles of Western music and interpreting it in a way that touches people is such an interesting task to undertake, and I doubt I’ll ever get bored of it.

The point is, new rep is up on the page!

I’ll also be learning one of Cleopatra’s arias from George Frideric Handel’s Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) for my chamber music class. That aria, “V’adoro pupille,” is also under the REPERTOIRE tab.

Not At Ease.

Music of Germany. Not a new subject for me.  So many of Western Classical music hailed from German-speaking regions that, although I may never have really studied it in depth, I had a good idea of what this class would be about when i signed up for it. Telemann, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann… the list could go on for ages. All either Austrian or German.

But this class… geez. My professor has a tendency to lecture straight out of the book. But at the same time, she shows tons of biographical DVDs. While I find it very intriguing that Bach was considered old-fashioned by his contemporaries, I’d much  prefer a more analytical approach to his music. Also, I really can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be learning for this midterm. It’s in 2 hours.

I know the lives of composers, and I know my forms backwards and forwards. I’ve studied the works extensively, and am capable of ID’ing them (with a little help from my talent for identifying musical keys…) But I don’t feel prepared, and it’s not a good feeling.

Summer in… Prague???

There’s an international chamber music festival going on in Prague this summer. My brother got a recommendation from our old piano teacher for two intensive weeks of practicing, masterclasses, and daily one-on-one lessons with chamber music professionals. I might go too.

It would be so much work, but I think it’d be amazing to go to the Czech Republic! And it makes sense for me. Even though I will be outsung by the vast majority of the people there, I may never run into another opportunity like this! Now is a time in my life when I’m singing 5 times more than I ever have before. I’m studying music full time. I’m performing and attending concerts practically nonstop. I might not be an opera diva yet, but it’s still just the beginning of what I believe will be a long era for me, and this kind of intensive work in prima donna preparation is just the kind of thing I’m looking for.

I know I haven’t written very much about my practicing as of late… but I’ve been putting my all into it. I’m trying to polish a piece every week to buff up my repertoire and get performance practice. I have my music with me everywhere I go. I feel like I am constantly singing, memorizing libretto (opera lyrics), studying diction, or translating my pieces. I am putting so much of myself into my voice this quarter, and the steady progress I’ve made so far is the best motivation I could ask for. My voice feels limber. My Italian seems more natural. I have more confidence in my performances. None of this came without struggle, but it seems to me that everything is going my way

Teamwork

I was wary when I first joined The Treble Singers. “Why am I joining yet another a cappella group???” I thought to myself over and over. Rehearsals started off a little disorganized and not as productive as they could have been, but the talent was there. San Francisco Girls Chorus alums, vocal performance majors, veteran choristers, and musical theater gnomes. We started off with a rather off-putting madrigal and a heavily overdone Beatles song.

But we evolved very quickly. Bonding was very high on our list of priorities, and bond we did. A date was set for karaoke night, and we all got to know each other a little better through singing rather un-prettily. Rehearsals were streamlined, music choice shifted, and we really started getting into the groove of things.

What really pleased me about tonight’s rehearsal, and what makes me think that this is definitely going somewhere is that we all have such collaboration-geared attitudes toward the group. Katya, Alice, and Rebecca are working on outfits. Becca and Rachel are handling the administrative stuff. Daphne is doing our Facebook group. Katie is working on t-shirt designs. I’m arranging and correcting music. My point is that we’re all involved to some degree, and no single person is heavily burdened with more than her share of work. It also helps that we all have tips from our past musical experiences, and make valid contributions to rehearsals.

After just four rehearsals, we have four pieces–two of which are memorized. Learning is lightning quick in this group. That makes me so happy