i was away for the holidays, celebrating in the boston area with my boyfriend and his family.  during that time we were in the process of transferring the website onto a new server and working out the kinks inherent in any major shift.  if you’ve experienced problems with the site, just hold in there, all will be fixed soon.

i worked up quite a few recipes that are currently on deck to be posted, but since it’s been a busy week back at work and school i’ll appease you for now with these drool-worthy cinnamon buns i made on christmas morning. no real recipe for them, but i loosely based them on this cinnamon swirl bread i made in the past.  just cut into pieces after rolling up (i used dental floss to great nice, clean cuts) and i let the pieces rise in a 9×9 pan overnight, covered with plastic wrap in the fridge.  i’m pretty sure i used twice as much cinnamon-sugar filling than in the original recipe, but it made them even better.  for the icing i whisked together some melted butter, powdered sugar and a little milk.

these were great on christmas morning but they are able to make any morning extra special.

i put together my recent recipe for maple cookies with marmalade glaze to submit to the Yummly Holiday Cookie Contest, but while i was at it i also submitted all of my previous christmas cookie recipes.  i don’t normally even enter contests, but i want to win very badly because the prize is a brand new 7qt KitchenAid stand mixer, which is my dream kitchen appliance.  that thing you always wish for but never actually think you’ll get.

and much to my surprise, one of my recipes was chosen as a finalist in the contest!  that means my chocolate candy cane chews have got a 1 in 10 chance at winning this thing, it all depends on your votes.

so now i need your help! you can vote here by simply clicking the “like” button and whichever recipe has the most votes by 5pm EST on December 20th will be the winner.  if that happens to be me i can guarantee lots more cookies and other treats to follow, made with a fancy new mixer.

the jujube is truly a special fruit.  in its fresh form it’s often called a chinese apple, which you can find in season for only about a month and a half, right about…now.  it starts a pale green color and turns a golden brown.  the green versions are a little more juicy and the brown are a little more sweet. as they ripen even more the brown color turns to red, especially when dried.

the jujube is more traditionally known in its dried form, called a chinese date or da zao.  it is a chinese herb that is in tons of different formulas.  Its properties include tonifying the digestive organs, tonifying energy, nourishing blood, calming the spirit and moderating the actions of other herbs – possibly harsh or hard to digest.

especially when combined with fresh ginger (sheng jiang) they are especially capable of assisting digestion.  because the chinese date is red, sweet and dried, while the ginger is fresh, juicy, yellow and spicy, they work together so powerfully because of their differences.  while the jujube is a gentle, mild tonic that is nourishing, the ginger has a stronger effect, which is more dispersing and moving, while also gently settling the stomach and acting as a tonic to digestion.  jujube and ginger are the definitive yin and yang pair of digestive herbs, and that is why they are so widely used.  if you want to read more about ginger, check out my post from 2 years ago: the natural goodness of ginger.

while the fresh version are still in season, you can enjoy them as they are, like tiny apples.  they have a pit instead of seeds and are a bit drier in texture than an apple, but stay juicier and tastier when kept cold in the fridge (in a plastic bag they keep much longer and don’t dry out.)

the skin is thick but they are so small they are a pain to skin.  for that reason i don’t use these much for baking, but add them into more savory dishes where i don’t mind the skins.  to cut up a jujube you just have to cut the edges off around the small pit in the middle.  then you can cut the top and bottom of the core piece as well, just leaving the small pit behind.  just make sure to remove the tiny little stem.  from there you can chop to whichever size you like.

add it into a sautee with onion, summer squash, bell pepper, eggplant, or greens.  they go great with just onion, kale, olive oil, salt and pepper.  i love to mix them in with porridge and stuffing, roast with chopped up root vegetables, apples and/or pears – especially great with roast chicken.

you can dry the jujubes yourself if you have a dehydrator.  my circular dehydrator is a little too small for them so the lid doesn’t quite close until they shrink a bit.  but eventually they all turn red and shrivel up.  but because it is the whole fruit it takes quite a long time to dry, i would say about 24-36 hours.  once they are very wrinkled all over, go through and remove any jujubes with black, yucky spots and store the good ones in a large, dry, clean jar with an airtight lid.

but if you don’t catch them while they are in season or don’t have a dehydrator then you can easily buy the dried version, whether online or in your local chinatown.

you can eat the dried jujubes like this.  the kids that i babysit for go crazy for them like this, but i find them a little too sweet for me.  i prefer to use them for brewing tea.  i often boil 3 to 5 of them for 30-45 minutes with fresh ginger and sometimes lemongrass, cinnamon stick or other chinese herbs.  this is a bit strong on its own so i either water it down or mix with some steeped green tea, with perhaps some fresh mint or basil.  sweetened with honey and/or stevia you can make a big huge batch of tea, portion into 16 oz (2 cups) jars and chill for some very tasty herbal iced tea you can grab on the go.  i make a batch at least 2-3 times a week.  it helps a lot with digestion and prevents me from paying $2 for an overly sweetened bottled iced tea when i’m out.

if you make your own stock then include the dried jujubes and fresh ginger in your next batch.  it is super easy to make in the crock pot overnight – if you’ve just roasted a chicken throw all the bones and scraps in the slow cooker with dried jujube, chopped ginger, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, salt, pepper and a few dried herbs with water to cover, let simmer, covered, on low overnight and strain in the morning, then store in the fridge for no more than a week.  it is a great way to use up food scraps, control your salt intake and make very cheap stock that is nutritious and delicious.

fresh or dried, no matter how you use them, the jujube is truly a magnificent food.  if you have never tried them before, get to a farmers’ market and give them a go!  some people just don’t have the taste for them but those who do seem to really take a liking.  which type of person are you?

i haven’t been posting the past few weeks not because i haven’t been cooking, i’ve just been too exhausted to pick up my camera or edit the photos i already took or write up the recipes i already made.  it’s been so god-awfully hot here in LA the past few weeks, i have great gazpacho and margarita recipes i can’t wait to share with you all, but i haven’t gotten around to posting because i’ve been so preoccupied.  i have had three weeks in a row of big tests at school, and have been spending way too many of these sweltering summer hours with my nose in giant text books.

i got this cool little acupuncture buddy (it’s actually a lady) to help me study and am quite excited about the investment.  it helps visualize all the points in relation to each other after lots of time spent learning the specific location and function of the individual points along their particular channel.  the right side has the english abbreviations and the chinese on the left.  while i don’t read or speak any chinese it makes my little model look that much cooler and more authentic.

we don’t know how old angie is exactly.  when we adopted her some people thought she was a little under a year, some thought a little over, so we decided the day we took her home would serve as her birthday.  this year on august 2nd we celebrated her 2nd birthday and 1st anniversary of her adoption!

normally she doesn’t get treats like this, but we figured that this was an occasion.  i whipped up this mild, light cupcake that is dog-friendly because it is free of salt, sugar and oil.  it is a whole wheat peanut butter and carrot cake with just a touch of honey for sweetness and applesauce rather than oil.  there is nothing dog-foody about it, just a little more dense and less sweet than a regular cupcake, like a muffin.  i even tried one myself and it wasn’t all that bad.

to decorate, i topped it with some plain greek yogurt (which angie gets sometimes at night to help settle her stomach) plus carrot shreds and one of her favorite little chicken-flavored treats.  she just went just crazy for it, trying to eat it all at once.  i got so worried she might choke on it that i helped her take little bites.  the other pupcakes were shared with her doggy friends who all eagerly gobbled them up as well.  make these for the dogs you love!

pupcakes
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp honey
1 egg
1 tbsp water
1/2 c shredded carrot

toppings
plain greek yogurt
carrot shreds
dog treats

preheat the oven to 350F

shred your carrot first.  one medium-sized carrot should give you a bit more than the 1/2 cup you need for the recipe so you have some left over for decorating.

mix together the flour and baking powder, then add in the peanut butter, apple sauce, vanilla, honey, egg and water, and mix in evenly.  add the carrot shreds last and loosely fold in, the texture should be slightly liquidy but still fairly thick.

fill 5-6 cupcake liners about 2/3rds full of batter and bake for 15-20 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out of the middle clean.)  let cool thoroughly before serving to any pups, you can even make them ahead of time since, let’s face it, dogs don’t really care if food is stale.  and make sure to remove the paper liner before they really dig in.

yes, that is a tiny party hat i made for my dog.  it stayed on for about 30 seconds.

and the farmers i work for grow a very special variety, their large oval-shaped yellow watermelons!  some of them get up to 20 lbs but i had no problem eating my way through most of one last week – sharing a few pieces with the baby i watch, who eagerly crunched the tiny cubes between her gums and slurped up the juice.

to find a great watermelon make sure you are looking in july/august, preferably from a farm that only sells seasonal produce, so you know they are picky about selling the good stuff.  the watermelon should have a light colored spot where it sat on the ground while growing (otherwise it was picked too soon) and it should have a little navel where the stem was twisted off (if it wasn’t broken off cleanly that is also a sign of early picking.)  now pat all the watermelons with your hand like you are banging on bongos.  the one that makes the lowest sound will be the juiciest and most ready to eat.  pick it up and it should feel very heavy for how it looks, another sign it is juicy.

you can usually keep a watermelon around on the counter for a few days before cutting into it, but once you do you should wrap it up and keep it in the fridge.  enjoy with friends!

i’ll begin with a disclaimer that i am no wine expert.  i don’t have the bank account nor the liver to be a connoisseur of such a rich substance, and don’t have formal knowledge beyond the tidbits i’ve picked up over the years.  but just as any other person obsessed with perfect palate pleasure – you know i’m going to go ga ga for the good stuff.   i still buy $6 bottles from trader joe’s to have at home, but once a month we go out for a nice dinner and have found a novice interest in trying good wines, especially when paired with good food.

we had done some wine tasting when we were camping in julian, ca last year, but that’s not quite considered “wine country.”  so on our recent trip to san francisco (which i will document with a series of posts to come) we knew a day trip to napa was in order.  i made sure to pack some sandwiches for the road as it can be dangerous to wine taste on an empty stomach.  and we took our time because it can also be a bad idea to start drinking wine too early in the day, heading out of sf around 11 o’clock.

we ended up being about half an hour early for our 1 o’clock appointment at honig, which is one of the dog-friendly wineries i looked up beforehand.  when i called ahead they gladly made me an appointment and said dogs are welcome!  they even have their own big floppy friend shuffling around the property.  they happily took us in early, pouring a light sauvignon blanc to get started and inviting us to sit down on their beautiful shady patio with a fresh bowl of water for our pup.  we ended up liking this first wine so much we took a bottle home for only $25.  then they served us two cabernet sauvignons which were good but no better tasting to me for being much more expensive.  they even added in an extra taste of a rosé which was quite good.

my favorite of everything was their dessert wine they end the tasting with: a late harvest sauvignon blanc.  it had strong honey flavor without being too syrupy or heavy in the mouth, and it didn’t have that dry tinge some sweet wines have, which seems to instantly give me a headache.  it was light on the palate with subtle notes of apricot and grapefruit, leaving a really lovely aftertaste that leaves you craving more.

they explained to us that they leave the grapes on the vine long past the regular fall harvest, until at least november or even december.  during this time the white fuzzy mold that we normally spot on strawberries forms around the grapes, protecting them and holding moisture in.  as the fog rolls into the dewy napa valley in early winter, it sits atop the vineyards and lets the grapes ripen beyond what we are used to – within the protection of a cool, moist cloud.  this extra time on the vine allows lots of natural sugars to form and any harsh bitter flavors to melt away, yielding a truly exceptional wine.  we didn’t end up buying it because it was $55 for a bottle half the size of a normal wine bottle, but it definitely left an impression on me.  at least we know it exists for very (very) special occasions.

their tasting was very affordable at only $10/person for 4 tastings, they even waive one fee when you buy a bottle.  we were helped by a very sweet girl named perses who had a wonderful passion for wine that was reflected in the way she spoke about it, as well as a generous pour.  we left the sunny patio with grins on our faces, headed just down the road to st. supery.

this short trip from honig to st. supery was like going from your cool aunt’s house who makes good food and has an awesome backyard, to going to your grandmother’s house where everything looks nice but there are rules about what you can touch and where you can sit.  although it was also a winery recommended for dog-friendly tastings, when i called ahead i practically got a lecture from a very old brittish woman about how only well behaved dogs are welcome – which of course ours is.  they said we required no reservation so we just popped in a little before 2 o’clock, walking between well-manicured lawns and rose bushes to get back to the tasting room.  we were waived in by the aforementioned british woman as her tentative eyes lay on our small dog.

their tasting room was cluttered with merchandise, ranging from wine openers, glasses, chillers, coolers, stands and display boxes, to useless crap like dog collars and visors.  there was no where to sit and the woman doing the tasting just seemed uncomfortable and nervous, i heard her talking with the 60-something couple next to us and she seemed to vibe with them a lot better, they are probably more their usual demographic.

they have 3 different tasting menus to choose from: one with only three wines, the next with those three plus two others, and an exclusive collection of 5 more expensive wines.  we decided to do the middle-of-the-road tasting as it was only $15/person, but the woman was actually nice enough to add in some of the more expensive wines for one of the tastings so we could try more, although her pour was very conservative.  it was interesting because while i didn’t find any of their wines particularly amazing, i didn’t even find much of a difference between the regular and more high-end varieties.  the only wine that i would have bought a bottle of was their dessert wine, a light moscato which was actually only $20, but at that point we just weren’t feeling it.  we paid the tasting fee and got out of there.

these wineries are a little north of the town of napa, in rutherford, ca which is closer to st. helena, but they are all considered part of napa valley.  in poking around the blogs before the trip i found that yountville is really the place to be.  home to uber famous and fancy french laundry, as well as several other successful restaurants also started by thomas keller.  it seemed to be a bit of a culinary mecca, so while i don’t think we could afford to sit down for dinner – we had to check it out.

the town of yountville is very small and very cute to stroll around.  it was starting to get really hot so we stopped by bouchon bakery – one of the places i had seen raved about online, and another place started by keller.  an iced coffee and sit in the shade would cool us down and wake us up from our sleepy afternoon of wine tasting, with a chocolate macaroon as a treat.  now i had never had a french macaroon before so i have nothing to compare it to, but this one was delicious.  it had a light, crispy outer crust with a doughy, soft inside almost like a soft brownie.

while sitting on a bench outside we actually got chatted up by the parents of the head pastry chef at the bakery, just beginning their vacation in napa to visit their daughter.  they began by asking about our dog and ended up inserting a few parental brags in for good measure, simply glowing with pride.  after the treat we were re-energized to make the drive back into san fran and spend the rest of our evening lazing about, reflecting on a lovely afternoon.

so i actually didn’t find this particular lemon verbena at the farmers’ market, but it is a special treat when i do find it there.  this lemon verbena actually came from my boss’ backyard – though the plant was originally started as a small seedling from the farmers’ market, it had now sprouted into a substantial woody shrub, capable of producing tons of new leaves each week.

this herb is a special treat as iced tea in the summertime.  it’s similar to a lemon-flavored basil, but the leaves are much thicker so i find it’s not as good for mincing to sprinkle on top of salads, i prefer to steep it instead.  the tea is really lovely sweetened with honey and chilled.  i used a french press to steep them because it makes it easy to strain out the leaves.

the tea also makes a nice base for a summer cocktail, with some type of clear liquor and perhaps a touch of sparkling water.  try it for yourself!

my boss had told me she and her family visited underwood farms to go berry picking for mothers’ day, which sounded just perfect.  while she had gone to the somis location, where they have blueberries and raspberries, we decided to go to the moorpark farm because they have more variety.  while they don’t have blueberries they do have raspberries, blackberries and strawberries, as well as a whole slew of veggies like zucchini, green beans, fennel, lettuces and tomatoes – just to name a few.

both locations are only 30-45 minutes away from the hollywood area without any traffic, so it was a quick drive on a tuesday morning.  when we first entered it seemed almost like a mini country fair.  they have tons of farm animals and rides for kids.  you can check out the goats, pigs, cows, horses, emus, ducks and chickens; there is even a little petting zoo area and pony rides.

as you make your way to the back there is a little shed where you can pick up 1 and 2 lb containers or plastic bags for your produce picking.  behind the shed you enter a large open field with veggies growing!  there are signs everywhere, stating the name and price per pound, but you are free to walk the fields and pick your produce.

we ending up getting some squash blossoms and heads of lettuce in addition to the berries, but not much more since our fridge is always packed after the farmers’ markets on the weekend.

when we were done, we headed back up to the front entrance with our bounty, where they weighed everything for us.  at $2.99/lb for the berries, they simply cannot be beat.  while they are much cheaper than those found at farmers’ markets (usually $3-$4 a pint), you also quickly gain a new appreciation for them.  if the berry isn’t completely ready to be picked, part of it will likely get a bit squished from tugging.  even without destroying the berry, these little blemishes make the berries far more perishable, as well as releasing juice that quickly pools at the bottom of the container.  they must be used very soon to avoid spoilage.  so while the price encouraged us to pick as many as we could carry, the perishability required i limit myself a bit.  we still got nearly 2 lbs of both raspberries and blackberries, if that’s considered holding back.

i made these raspberry rhubarb scones when i got home.  this was totally worth the short trip out of town.  check it out sometime this summer!

well i’m back!  and yes, that is a bit embarrassing to say just two posts – and one year! – after i exclaimed the very same thing, then promptly went on a long hiatus again.  but this time i mean it.

the site has just undergone a total redesign, which i couldn’t be more excited about, and my diet has had a major revolution as well.  no longer a vegan – but still very much a veggie-touting, farmers’-market-crawling, lover of all things fresh – i now incorporate small, quality amounts of meat and dairy in my diet.  like the grass fed flat iron steaks we had for dinner last night, doesn’t it look good?  for more info on my transition to becoming a meat-eater again, you can check out my about page, but for those who don’t care, i will spare you the details.

some of the features of the new design, just to name a few:

• my upcoming posts will feature larger photos
• try scrolling over the drop down recipes tab at the top of the page to browse by seasons or most popular posts, or click on the tab to full a catalogue of recipes with multiple viewing options
• when viewing recipes by category you can now browse visually with featured thumbnails of each post
• i am now proud to announce the site fowards to sbandgb.com as well as sbandgb.net for your typing convenience.
• you’ll soon notice ads on the site, nothing too crazy, i just hope they can help cover some of the costs of keeping up the blog.  if at any point i make a profit from the ads, i can investment even more in these things!

this redesign was done by the very talented jacob reed of jacob reed design.  he does lots of other great stuff too, so check him out!

to make the steak:

acquire good quality meat from a reputable butcher.  you want to make sure anything you get is free of antibiotics, hormones and preservatives like nitrates.  i often get my meat from either the farmers’ market, whole foods, or my favorite: McCall’s Meat and Fish.  purchase it as close to when you are going to prepare it as possible, try to get it day of and you’ll notice the freshness.

this cut is a flat iron steak, but i’ve also had really great skirt steaks cooked on the grill too.  it is grass fed which means it is more lean than beef that was raised on grain.

sprinkle a dash of salt and pepper on both sides of the steak, heat up the barbecue on high heat for a few minutes with the lid down to get it nice and hot.  sear the steaks on each side for about 30 seconds, then reduce the heat to medium, cover and cook, flipping every few minutes, for about 15-20 minutes depending on how well you like it – i prefer it on the more rare side.