Food Quiz #7 answer

Yay, Julie... they are indeed whole wheat crepes. (And go Rachel for guessing the whole wheat flour right off the bat.) I like mine with bananas and peanut butter. As an experiment I tried cocoa powder and confectioner's sugar... Tastes good. Looks ugly. Can't always have it both ways I guess.

My dad often made crepes for my mom and I when I was growing up. I liked to fold them in fourths and nibble them into edible snowflakes, kind of a craft and a snack all at once. Now that I'm grown up I don't do that (when anyone is watching).

I've only recently started making my own crepes... inspired by a whole grains cooking class at the Mettler Center in Champaign, Ill. that I attended as a last ditch effort to get a story for my Reporting 2 class. It didn't work because I was one of two people that attended the class and the other gal was really annoyed that I kept asking questions. Anyway. Here's a recipe adapted from the class:

Whole Wheat Crepes
3/4 cup unbleached flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1 2/3 cups liquid (I like vanilla Silk)

If you want, add 1/3 cup sugar. Or 2/3 cup sugar. Or a pinch of salt.
To avoid nasty flour lumps, stir a little of the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients at a time. Add a little oil to a skillet just to season it and turn the heat to medium. Pour about 2 or 3 tablespoons of batter and then quickly rock the pan in a circular motion to spread the batter as evenly as possible. Try to get the batter slightly up the sides of the pan. When the edges of the crepe begin to look crispy and lift from the pan, it's done. Use a spatula to peel the crepe from the pan. Repeat, fill and eat!

If you missed my wonderful mystery picture in food quiz #7, click here.

Food Quiz #6 answer

Romanesco
A natural fractal, this cauliflower-like vegetable is said to have a buttery taste (though I didn't notice one!) I bought it at the farmers market in Urbana, Ill. I didn't buy it from this guy though.

Because of her excellent Wiki-skills, the prize goes to Jessica, my former GP at Cal-Poly :) Hey, send me your address so I can send you a prize!

Food Quiz #5 answer

Okinomiaki

This dish has been called Japanese Pizza, even though there's not much similarity between the two. It involves meats and veggies (so I guess that's similar), the most plentiful vegetable being shredded cabbage (so I guess that's not too similar.) It's also kind of an omlette, with a layer of chese on top-- seared by an aerosol can of fire. Yow!

This photo was taken in 2004 at Gregg Wroblewski's favorite restaurant in Hiroshima, where he teaches English.

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Another answer: In a previous post I made you guess which angel food cake we ended up with from Schlabach's bakery. For some reason the photo, as of Oct. 6 is showing up as a box with a red X in it. Imagine, friends, that it is a picture of a bright yellow lemon angel food cake.

Food Quiz #4 answer

Rhubarb muffins
You all guessed rhubarb right away, and many of you know I'm fond of muffin making. It's the best way to use up random produce.

This rhubarb was courtesy of the John Parrino garden. Joe ate just a few more than me. But I suppose if you were to work out a ratio of muffin to pound of person, I probably ate more muffins proportional to my size. :-)

Rhubarb strawberry muffins
(makes 2 dozen)
Wet: (These are the ingredients in the Food Quiz photo)
1 1/2 cups diced rhubarb
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup freeze dried strawberries (pick them out of your Special K, or go to Trader Joe's for these!)

Dry:
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Mix, pour into muffin cups, bake at 350 until they look done.

Food Quiz #3 revealed

Halva is a sticky, sweet, oily loaf of tahini (sesame seeds) and other nuts. This particular block came from Lebanon. It's dessert, and can be spread on crackers. Ours got a little hard, so we have to saw through it with our cutco knife. Joe just eats it plain. Sorry-- I know this one was tough. I'll try to make the next quiz a little more reasonable.

Mellow Pomelo

Answer to Random Food Quiz #1:

That was a pretty quick round of Food Quiz (see previous post if you don't know what I'm talking about.) Many thanks to all who made a guess, especially those who ventured to leave comments.
My co-worker 'Sunshine' figured out that this funny fruit is a pomelo. She wins... a jar of pickles! But they won't be ready for another two weeks, says my sous pickle chef husband.

A little bit about this lovely fruit.


It was a tricky quiz because not all pomelos look the same. The first time I laid eyes on some-- there were 3 or 4 rolling around in the trunk of my college roommate's mom's car. (Remember that, Pamela?) And they were the size of small beach balls. They looked pretty much the same as a grapefruit, except for their enormous girth.

A few years later, when Joe and I taught English in Taiwan,I was introducted to a new variety. It was green, shaped like a pear and only a little larger than the average grapefruit. These fruit are really popular during the moon festival and little kids like to wear half the spongy rind as a hat. An odd practice that Joe would never be able to imitate because if he's in the same room as someone ripping one of these babies apart, he goes into an endless sneezing fit.

Poor guy. And pomelos are really so yummy. The little juicy pouches are more durable than most citus fruit, so you can pull apart and peel the big sections without getting all sticky. I used to peel the fruit and leave it out uncovered for a couple hours. This would dry out the (intensely bitter) inner skin and make it really easy to remove.

The pomelo in the pictures is one I bought in Champaign while were in grad school. I was shocked to discover a ruby interior, yet another variation. I'm sure there's probably still other kinds of pomelos out there, too.