The Mighty Kumquat

Today's post is by Michelle Syracuse from gather365, a must read for amazing food and drink recipes and East Bay restaurant reviews! xo, Heather


I was thrilled when my friend and fellow blogger, Heather, invited me to do a guest post for Poppy Haus. I love her sensibility, and of course her great ideas for DIY projects. But the thing I love the most is she does it all with 2 very active little boys underfoot. I can relate to that challenge, as I have 2 little wild things of my own.

While it's true there are days when total chaos ensues and our quest for order derailed, we press on in our determination to live, entertain and decorate with a bit of style. And when it comes to stylish entertaining nothing says - "I've got it all together" faster (and easier) than offering your guests a carefully crafted signature cocktail. I kick off every party this way and I've compiled dozens of recipes at gather365 - come on over for some tasty inspiration.

Although it would be fun, you don't need to become a mixologist to make great cocktails. Simply adopt a few game-changer techniques like infusing spirits and mixing custom simple syrups, consider the compatibility with your menu and experiment a little. If you really want to pursue the mixology thing though let this be your bible.

Heather gave me 2 parameters: use only seasonal ingredients - always great advice, and no gin. I gave myself 2 additional ones - a drink that looks as good as it tastes - presentation is everything, and use a recipe that incorporates a few  special techniques.

So I whipped up a kumquat Campari martini. The spirit is infused vodka and the seasonal ingredient is kumquat. All citrus marries well with most cocktail recipes, but I especially like this quirky, inside out, sweet and sour variety - the peel is sweet while the fruit is sour. Plus they make for a very festive garnish and no cocktail is properly dressed without that.

If martinis aren't your thing, or you need to make a big batch rather than individual drinks - which I highly recommend for large gatherings, try this recipe. 

Cheers!

Kumquat Campari Martini

Ingredients:

• 2 oz kumquat infused vodka*
• 1/4 oz  Campari
• 1/2 oz kumquat, cardamom simple syrup**
• 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a shaker filled with ice, shake vigorously, strain into a stem glass, and garnish with a slice of kumquat.

Techniques:

Infused vodka: Combine 1/2 pint of kumquats, sliced in half, with 12 oz of vodka and store in sealed glass container for at least 24 hours - 72 hours is best. Adjust the amount of fruit and spirit for number of cocktails - this will make approximately 8 drinks.

Custom simple syrup: Combine 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water plus a hand full of sliced kumquats and 3 dried cardamom pods* in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Cool completely before continuing.

*I served this cocktail with a Moroccan Chicken dish which included cardamom but you could substitute with fresh mint, ginger, lemongrass or star anise if that was a better match for your food.

Good Eats

Two Tarts - Baked Eggs with Proscuitto and Gruyere

For me, the hardest thing to get a pretty picture of is food.  The raw components can be off putting, and lighting and styling food when I'm actually preparing it is no easy feat, especially because that's usually after dark.  I guess that's why I don't write a food blog. As a capable home cook, I do appreciate beautifully shot food blogs as a resource for new ideas and techniques. A tablet on the counter sometimes replaces my need for clunky cookbooks, making it easier to scroll between recipes when I'm working on a complete meal.  I can also carry recipes with me to the store by way of my phone.  My new favorite food blog is Two Tarts. A collaboration between two Colorado foodie friends named Dulcie and Sarah. They have amassed a collection of recipes for food and drink, with a focus on seasonal fare and components, like syrups, sauces, and pie crust. I'll be testing their Baked Eggs recipe when I host our now semi-regular ladies invitational next month. Here are some more pretty food blogs to explore if home cooking is your thing...

COOKIE + Kate

5&Spice

Jelly Toast

Green Kitchen Stories

My New Roots

Cherry Bomb

Cherries are one of my favorite summer treats, and they are at the height of their season right now. I love them fresh out of of the basket or baked into pies, in quinoa salad, and as preserves with goat cheese on a whole wheat English muffin for breakfast.    

The Century Mark

It just so happened that last night I noticed I had posted 99 times. I started to wonder what I should do for my 100th post.  I thought it would be nice to do something that captured the spirit of the blog, but I'd only planned to share my recipe for a soba noodle salad (not 100th post material). Today when I was prepping ingredients with Wylie, shooting pictures and then sitting down to share lunch with him I realized that Poppy Haus is about moments like these.  It's about creatively living your everyday life. 

So here's that recipe. Try it, you'll like it.

 I am a chow hound.  By this I mean that I like to eat a LOT.  I know this is only good for me if what I'm eating is very healthy, and by that I mean mostly vegetables. For this recipe I use buckwheat soba noodles (found at most grocery stores)and seasonal crunchy green things. To make it more of an entree add chopped shrimp or shredded chicken. It's also wonderful with a little mango.  The secrets in the sauce.  It's salty, tangy and nutty. Also, because it's "noodles" my kids will eat it.


Soba Noodle Salad
(serves 2-4) 


2 bundles of buckwheat soba noodles
1 cup of chopped snap peas
1/2 bunch of asparagus, bias cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup of broccoli florets, halved


For Sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar

Directions:

In a large saucepan bring 6 cups of water to boil.  
Add noodles and reduce heat to simmer for 4 minutes.
Remove from heat, strain, and put noodles into a large bowl half filled with ice water to flash cool for 2 minutes.  
Strain noodles, discard ice water and return the noodles to the bowl.


Fill a wide shallow sauce pan with 3 inches of water.  
Bring to a boil and reduce heat just below the boiling point.  
Add broccoli, blanch for 1 minute, remove, allowing to cool on a plate. 
Add asparagus to the pan, blanch for 1 minute and remove to the cooling plate. 


Prepare sauce by whisking ingredients together.


Pour sauce over the noodles and toss until coated.  Add the snap peas, broccoli and asparagus (once cooled), toss until coated.  Season with sea salt if desired.



 

Make It Last

Berry season is on it's way.  Strawberries and blackberries are a staple in my home.  We eat berries on our cereal, on peanut butter sandwiches instead of jam, in our dinner salad.  I'll often buy a flat at the farmer's market which will last through the week, sometimes longer.  I keep the berries fresh by rinsing and then air drying them in a colander, before putting them in an airtight container. My trick for making strawberries last is to cut their tops off and slice them in half. This prevents them from shriveling and becoming mealy.   

Enjoy By

I have a LOT of condiments, sauces and compotes that I use for specific recipes, and not that often.  Tonight I'm making a tofu curry from Sunset Magazine inspired by a dish at Hawker Fare, one of Oakland's best new restaurants.  It calls for fish sauce.  When I went to check to see if I even had any, the expiration date on the bottle was worn off from condensation and being banged around.  I had no idea when I bought it, so I had to toss and replace.  While in there I discovered a few more items with unreadable dates, and some that I guess I felt never went bad that had expired a WHILE ago.  Gross. I came up with a solution to this problem.  Using circular labels, the kind you might use tagging items at a garage sale, I went through and marked the expiration date in sharpie and stickered the top of the jar lid (or back of bottle). It only took a few minutes to get it all done, and it'll take no time to keep the system going.  FYI, Real Simple has a loose guide to determine expiration dates of food and other household products.

Girl From the North Country

We've decided to uproot ourselves from the eucalyptus grove in Oakland and head for greener pastures in Petaluma. This is one of those major life decisions that I would have made in about one minute ten years ago, like when we moved to Portland without jobs after traveling through Europe for a month.  That is not my life anymore. Now we have to debate about leaving schools, friends and our old familiar haunts. We've been hemming and hawing about it for a while now. Despite the fact that it's a small city, and a bit off the beaten path, Petaluma has a robust, creative downtown and the outlying neighborhoods are within walking distance. On the outskirts of town there are lots of cows, past the cows there's beautiful coastline and fancy oysters. I like this a lot. I grew up in a small town, and I went to college in a small town, so this feels right. We move this Summer. I expect I'll be doing lots of Sunset Magazine style write ups on my new finds.  Here's what I'm most excited about* so far in our new city:

Acre Coffee - it's important to me to have a coffee place to call my own.  I'm really serious about my coffee, it has to be good.  We stopped at Acre twice in one day during a recent visit. They do it right.

Cowgirl Creamery- made in Petaluma, enough said.

Central Market- A five star farm to table restaurant in downtown Petaluma.  I cannot wait to eat here.


The Seed Bank- Petaluma has an excellent climate for home gardening and this is Baker Creek Heirloom Seed's west coast location. We poked our heads in and it looks amazing.


The Petaluma Farmer's Market- The markets run twice a week in different areas of the Theater District of downtown.  I've read that Three Twins Ice Cream sometimes has a booth here. 

Lagunitas Brewing Company- We stopped by on our way out of town so that my double IPA loving man could get a growler to take home.  They put them in giant jam jars.  The tasting room has an adjoining patio with picnic tables and live music.  Oh, there was a Neko Case poster in the bathroom, so this place is obviously awesome.

*Yes, this is all food related.