Monthly Archive for February, 2009
I bought an ice cream machine! lots of frozen treats are going to be churned. My first batch was Earl Grey. Second batch, Nutella toasted hazelnut with cacao nibs. Delicious.
One of my friends frequently gives up eating chocolate for Lent (supposed to be 40 days but the church doesn’t count Sundays… so infact, longer than 40 days) So for Fat Tuesday — the day before the first day of lent, Ash Wednesday, I made her an ice cream cake made with the nutella ice cream with a chocolate ganache topping, sugared toasted hazelnuts and a 62% scharffenberger shell. Again, no picture because of no camera. I’m so sorry.
Today I went to the mushroom farm to buy cheap bulk mushrooms, but they were not as cheap of as good as expected. Mushroom compost, I learned, is about $5 per truckload–about one cubic yard. BUT mushroom compost is used three times (aka spent) and it has inconsistence in quality. Sometimes you find fiberglass in it. Mushroom compost is also supposed to be high in salt content — probably due to the salt given to animals and the compost is made from animal manure.
If you live in Ventura County, The Ojai Valley Sanitary District offers free biosolid compost. Its supposed to be 50% horse manure and hay and 50% biosolids. They have a labratory on site… They’re open from 8-3 and you can pick up anywhere from a bucket to a huge truckload of compost. They have more available in the drier seasons– summer and fall. I haven’t used it yet so I cant vouch for its quality, but I got a truckload of it equalling about 2-3 cubic yards. It smells more like ammonia than manure. Biosolid, for those of you who don’t know, is basically processed and treated from wastewater. Biosolid compost use in comercial produce is controversial in the US but as much as 50% of European produce is grown using this stuff. Again no pictures, and tears because of this.
The address for the biosolid compost 6363 N. Ventura Ave, Ventura. Take the 33N to Canada Larga… turn left off the exit. Right at the stop sign…Its about half a mile down on the left. The facility is down a long, old street and the address is unmarked from the street…
I’ve had a camera for as long as I can remember, most of the time more than one. But unfortunately for me, I tend to get alot of use out of them and break them in the process. (Sometimes my friends break them). Right now ALL of my digital cameras are broken (2) and I lost 1… I have two fully functional film cameras… but honestly, I’m not going to take pictures with film right now. Instant gratification has ruined me, and my darkroom supplies are scattered in boxes all over my house and garage and the space I used to use as a darkroom has been demolished for renovation.
Anyways, I wish I could take pictures of my creations and my plants I’m growing and the orange tree I climb to pick the fruit to make the best orange juice… but I have no camera and that fact makes my blogging less frequent. I want to buy another camera, I know how cheap they are these days; but I am unemployed. go figure. Unemployment, however, has been an adventure.
I’ve discovered a (new to me) mexican grocery store chain called Vallarta. They’re weekly specials are insane. 4 pounds of onions for $1. . . 4 pounds of fuji apples for $1. Fluffy mexican loaves of white bread 3 for $1. I love the ‘dirty’ feeling of these kinds of places. This place has meat in glass cases that look (and smell) like they have questionable refrigeration. They have hand made mexican chorizo that is so obviously still stuffed in intestinal casing… Huge cow tongues, delicate calfs tongues, pig trotters by the dozen and all sorts of other goodies. Theres also a section that sells prepared mexican food. My favorite, however, was definitely the undersized kiwi at 7 per $1, green onions 4 per $1, and parsley at 3 bunches $1. I LOVE this place.
Right now I’m in the middle of making some cinnamon buns. sorta. First of all its not nearly the middle because I’m still in the process of waiting for the starter to become bubbly — about an hour and a half wait. Also sorta in that the buns have cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, brown sugar, vanilla sugar and that’s just the spices. The buns are going to have overnight brandy marinated dried figs and chopped walnuts rolled into them. The dough is a rich brioche base dough. But I can’t quite give you a recipe yet… since its a combination of recipes, ideas and pinches of this and that. I’m not sure if it will turn out to be tasty… but I will write the filling below, just so I don’t forget.
1 cup chopped dry figs
2 tbsp brandy
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 big pinches vanilla sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp clove
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/8 tsp allspice
– I’m pretty sure I will add more brown sugar to this recipe… we’ll see how it goes