(via the thekitchn.com)

i'm back with a post after almost a year! and of course, i owe it all to a salty snack. my favorite. soon to be your favorite too, perhaps.  

did you know you could make chips in the microwave??? in less than 10 minutes??  this could be a dangerous thing for someone like me. are you ready? it is so easy you will wonder why you would bother to buy chips ever again.

1. take a russet potato. scrub it clean.

2. slice it up with a mandoline. no, not the musical instrument that steve plays. if you don't have a mandoline, a good old-fashioned knife will do. slice it up real thin.

3. sprinkle potato slices with salt.  and pepper.  or if you like salt 'n vinegar chips, dip slices in some vinegar before adding salt.

4. arrange in a single layer on a sheet of parchment paper or plate.

5. microwave for 4 minutes or until brown spots start to appear. you can flip each one over at this point if you want to. microwave 1-2 minutes more as needed, until they look like chips. if they burn...you've gone too long.  

THAT'S IT! CHIPPIES!  

experiment with different seasonings and flavors! note: we were not fans of old bay seasoning chips.  blegh. salt and vinegar was good. so was salt and pepper. and just salt was just fine too.

you can't make a giant batch this way, but then again, maybe you shouldn't be eating a giant batch of chips now, should you.  

next time i'm gonna try this with a sweet potato instead.

pandas!   bread!  pandabread! what could be more perfect. 

i want to make this so bad.

(via http://perfectpandas.com/2008/01/08/panda-bread/)

i worked from the sf office on monday. during lunch we were walking down the street and wondering why people across the street were sitting there and staring in our direction.  and then someone behind us got attacked.  and everyone pointed and cheered.  pretty soon we found ourselves across the street with the crowd, cheering every time passersby got dive-bombed. it was awesome.

what should i make next??? i'm paralyzed by the endless possibilities. whipped cream? cookies? cupcakes? bread? frosting? meringue? mayonnaise? butter??  help!

i think i may be baking my way to an absurd electric bill this month.  sorry roomies (or, you're welcome).

this comes out next week to a theater near you.  go see it. be moved to action. 

if you are a human being, it is relevant to you. and more than worth your time. i promise.

-sausage (from hidden villa), tomato, zucchini, garlic, and cheese bake
-webb ranch corn on the cob with clover farmstead butter
-homegrown cucumbers, csa box bell peppers, and dip (mint, dill, straus yogurt, lemon juice, and salt)
-fresh half moon bay tuna (bought on a ship that day!) served 2 ways--sashimi (lemon juice, green onions, salt) and pan seared with chard
-oven roasted potatoes, zucchini bake
-fried sage and garlic
-our own version of stone soup, with giant beans (instead of stones) and a ton of veggies
-heirloom tomatoes with olive oil, vinegar, and basil
-local jasmine tea with lavender honey
-fresh squeezed lemonade with honey
-watsonville strawberries
-peaches
-flan (made with straus milk and aptos eggs)

we came to a couple conclusions from the evening.  we live in a really really great place.  there's a ton of things we can get locally, including wine, a variety of fruit year round, olive oil, dairy/cheese.  and you don't have to spend a ton of money to be able to eat locally (although it is also quite easy to spend a lot of money doing so too).  farmer's markets are a great source for seasonal fruits and veggies, and there are several nearby that many of us visited to get our ingredients.  (our parents' backyards were another unexpected great source for fruits and veggies.  and free.)  flour and grains are things that are hard to find locally (a sad realization for us carb lovers), but i'm not losing hope--i've been alerted recently about this.  sugar was also a difficult ingredient.  i ended up getting some vegan cane sugar from whole foods that is fairly traded.  i figured that the vegan (not decolorized through animal bone char process) and fair trade parts would balance out the fact that it was from malawi...which is...not so much within 100 miles of here.  a similar choice had to be made with the sausages, which were made from animals raised at hidden villa in los altos, but processed in a plant 4 hours away.  but the decision to not use a local plant to process was because the farther plant did not use nitrates, so bending the 100-mile rule was deemed appropriate and allowable. 

all in all, it was a fun and challenging experiment in thinking through our food choices and sources. and it didn't hurt that at the end of the evening we had full bellies and enjoyed fun company! 

let's do it again!