I am in LOVE with cold peanut noodles, but they always have a ton of peanut butter and sesame oil in the sauce which is incredibly caloric, and noodles aren’t exactly low cal either. My muffin top is big enough already so if I want to eat these I feel I have to make them a slightly different way, wherein the noodles are augmented by lots of colorful vegetables and the caloric parts of the sauce are cut down a bit. After much experimentation, this is the happy medium I came up with!

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Last week, we had a terrific meal at Picán Restaurant in Oakland. One of the highlights was a seasonal tomato and peach panzanella (bread salad). I did my level best to re-create it at home and it made for a hearty, simple, summery side dish. Of course, the one at Picán had bacon in it, so that’s always an option…

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It’s probably not technically accurate to call this tasty soybean dip “hummus” but you should think of it as a descriptive, evocative name, not a culturally accurate one. (I’m not alone in this – for example, they’re pretty conflicted about this, among other aspects of edamame hummus, over at The Delicious Life.) But no matter what you want to call it, it turns out if you give soybeans a somewhat hummus-like treatment, you get a whole lotta tasty. Here’s my take on the meme.

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Here in San Francisco we’re enjoying the delicious days of Indian summer- after being shrouded in fog through July and August, our warm September days come and shower us with summer sun. As such, it’s time to use up the last of the summer produce and highlight it a few more times, before saying goodbye until next summer.

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A couple months back I posted about a condiment competition between me and my Dad. At the time, I made a black mustard, which I called Moutarde Le Bête Noire (“Black Beast Mustard”), and it was extremely pungent and spicy.

It turns out if you mellow this mustard in the fridge for about a week, it’s absolutely fantastic. Although it didn’t win the competition at the time, it’s now a family favorite. One of our newly learned tricks is to quickly saute green beans or asparagus and toss with this mustard before serving. It’s mellow, rich, and complex, and adored by mustard aficionados and skeptics alike.

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This weekend I did something a little different… a Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event I’m calling Family Food Feud: Colossal Condiment Competiton! Read on for details, winners, dark horses, and recipes…

The background:

My Dad is super into making things and canning them for later- pickles, jams, tomatoes, syrups, you name it. Every year I try to add new things to our family’s home-canned repertoire, like lemon curd and onion relish. But in short, this came about because what started out as a father-daughter bonding moment over the idea of making homemade ketchup turned into a full-on condiment CHALLENGE! Suddenly it was a competition. We were one-upping each other with over-confident bluster about our innovative and sure-to-be tasty imagined flavor combinations. It was all out of control. And it was ON like DONKEY KONG.

This was to be a serious smackdown between me and my Dad. Having a relatively tactless group of friends and brutally honest  family members, we knew no one would play favorites with the judging. The results would stand. Thanks to Foodbuzz, who agreed to sponsor this familial food fight by featuring it in their 24, 24, 24 for July, our competition came to fruition.

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I’m not talking about dates like going out to the movies here, I’m talking about DATES! Like, the fruit.

This is a really simple way to make a tasty treat. It’s not really ice cream (ergo the quotes), it just sort of tastes like ice cream with almost no work. I like to use Barhi (sometimes spelled Barhee) dates because they are oh-so-creamy and lend themselves perfectly to this technique.

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The other night I made a big batch of carnitas for some family and friends. Of course, you have to have beans on the side, and no one makes better Mexican beans than my brother-in-law Steve-O. He was kind enough to walk me through the process. Since then I have adapted and changed them to my liking.

There are some reasons these taste better than regular beans. One reason is the beer. Another is the method of adding a whole bunch of liquid and then cooking the s*** out of them so all the liquid reduces back into the beans to flavor them.

There is no picture because you know what it’s impossible to take a good picture of? Smooshed up refried beans. I even thought of pulling a picture off of some other website but they were all unattractive too. Go ahead. Do a search. You’ll see. Plus I think it’s safe to assume that you all know what beans look like already.

UPDATE: I was wrong! I added a pretty good picture of beans that I took yesterday.

Steve-O’s Beer Beans

Ingredients:

• 2 T lard or vegetable oil
• 1/2 large onion or 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 cans beans (pinto or black, or a combo)
• 1 can or bottle of beer- the yeasty ones are good, or use Mexican beer since you’ll probably be drinking it with your meal anyway
• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 or 2 envelopes of Caldo de Pollo, or some chicken broth concentrate (they have a new product at Whole Foods called “savory choice liquid concentrate chicken stock” that is my favorite. Steve uses the Caldo de Pollo from the Mexican foods aisle. You can use bouillion cubes if you must.)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• In a large saucepan (preferably nonstick), heat the lard or oil over medium high heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until soft and aromatic.
• Add the beans with their liquid and stir. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring. With a potato masher, smash up about half the beans.
• Add the beer, chicken broth, and Caldo de Pollo to the mixture. It should be pretty liquidy.
• Cook over medium low heat, stirring and scraping the sides, until the liquid has reduced and the beans are the consistency of refried beans.
• Taste and add salt and pepper and/or more Caldo de Pollo if necessary and cook, stirring, until deliciousness ensues.
• Go ahead, try and take an attractive picture. YOU CAN’T.
• These will keep for a couple of days in the fridge and can be made ahead.
• To make this vegetarian/vegan, substitute vegetable broth or mushroom broth for the chicken broth and caldo de pollo.