Food Tips: Salt and Pepper

I talked about using sea salt and fresh ground pepper in a previous blog. Yesterday I started talking to a friend about what kind of pepper to buy, so I wanted to blog in more detail about it.


Salt


I am super excited to have this 2 pound bag of sea salt from my favorite Asian grocery which happens to be in Fort Wayne where I grew up. (Oriental Grocery & Mart 504 Noble Dr Fort Wayne, IN 46825 (260) 471-0245‎). It is excellent sea salt and only was $1.79. I also love to get my Asian pantry staples here without the American megamarket mega-markup. (Pantry staples is a future post, but I love rice vinegar and sambal oelek (a chili paste)) I can splurge and buy random things to try and it seems to always come out to only $20.

More about sea salt... Sea salt is in flakes so it provides texture to take a pinch and use it to sprinkle across your food as you cook. But, as much as I love using sea salt, its larger size makes it harder to season your individual serving. For sprinkling on your own food, try a salt grinder (yeah, like a pepper grinder) to get that good salt taste without big chunks. They make sea salt rocks that are bigger so they don't fall through the grinder. When baking with sea salt, I've learned to start putting the salt in with the liquid mixture so it dissolves evenly throughout the food rather than mixing it with the dry. (Why are these biscuits so unevenly salty??)


I haven't gotten much into the varieties of salt (a la Michael Chiarello's obsession with gray salt) but I do have this red Hawaiian Alaea sea salt. Its interesting but haven't used it much. It is described as 'almost fruity with a slight peppery note'. If you want to get on the salt varietal bandwagon, check the above link for more types of salt.


Pepper



I like multicolored peppercorns for a distinctly noticeable complexity to the pepper. The picture is of my current kind with gorgeous pink, white, green and black peppercorns all mixed together.


Grinders



This is what happens when you have your own small college set, buy your own large grinder, then get your out-of-town-boyfriend-now-husband hooked on fresh ground pepper. A little grinder family! As I've mentioned, the iodized salt in the larger two is about worthless but the smallest one is a salt grinder, hooray! Having multiple grinders also means I can have different kinds of pepper at hand; the smallest has Szechuan peppercorns.

When buying a grinder look for one with metal grinding plates for durability and an adjustable plate depth for changing pepper particle size (using the nut at the top of the grinder). The ability to have varied particle size is good for making a fine pepper to season a soup and larger chunks when pepper-encrusting.

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Oh, and when the husband gets his new fancy camera I'm sure he'll want to become my official photographer. And he will take much better pictures than I.

Eco Tips: Compost Bowl

We have a compost bin in the backyard in which we put food scraps and grass clippings. We keep a pretty glass bowl out on the counter that we put our scraps into, including apple cores, egg shells, and vegetable trimmings. Then, once every day or two (before it gets moldy!) we take it out to the compost. It is a similar idea to the Garbage Bowl but even better, because we can eventually use the compost in our garden!

If you have dogs you may need to get a bowl with a lid or a canister type container. If you live in an apartment, you may need to get creative with your compost container and try something smaller indoors, like a crock or something for a balcony, patio, or porch.

Household Tips: Bed Sheets Part II

Bed sheets, like t-shirts, can be rough at first and get softer over time. My brother's co-worker Joe recently posted a tip on how to soften those brand new sheets.

Sheet Happens

About eight months ago I purchased two sets of bamboo (viscose) / cotton sheets from West Elm. They are no longer available, but I find them quite soft, and durable. Plus, bamboo readily regrows and is more environmentally friendly.

Food Tips: Flavored Water

I like to drink water, but I tend to drink it more at work than at home with the convenience of the chilled water cooler. Lately, I've started to make my own flavored water. During pregnancy, and now breastfeeding, I need to keep my liquids up but don't need all the calories, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and added flavors and colors in juices and sports drinks that I'd typically drink (not counting carbonated beverages or artificially sweetened things I rarely drink). Bonus points for now using my fridge water filter, reducing the cost to me of buying at the store, and the environmental impact of bottles, manufacturing, transportation, and recycling.

A few of the varieties of water I've tried: lemon, lime, raspberries, mint (from the herb garden) and some combinations of the above. I hear cucumbers are refreshing too.

Household Tips: Bed Sheets

We've been grateful to have several visitors to see our baby. This also means we've washed our extra sets of sheets a few times, and I've been able to utilize one of my favorite tips from Domino Magazine.

Fold your flat and fitted sheets as normal. Fold any pillowcases except for one. Place all the folded sheets inside the pillowcase. This will keep your sheets all together, nicely folded, and protected from dust while awaiting the next visitors!

A little guy

Two weeks ago we welcomed our first child into the world. It is a wonderful experience to have him in our lives.

More posts to come.

Food Tips: The Best Basics Make the Best Food

The most important thing to improving your food life is eating the best quality foods. Start with having the best basics in your kitchen.

Specific tips:

Salt: Stick to sea or kosher salt. Find something else to use that can of iodized salt for, like a cleaning abrasive.
Pepper: Invest in a quality grater, with an adjustable particle size, and a good supply of multicolor peppercorns. Upgrading to the multicolor peppercorns is huge compared to the black peppercorns, and the scary black 'powder' probably shouldn't be called pepper.
Good olive oil: I'm spoiled by the nearly empty bottle we bought in Italy, but find a quality flavorful oil and store it in a dark cabinet/bottle at a good temperature.
Other cooking fats: I really like safflower (yes, safflower not sunflower) oil for a neutral, high-temperature cooking medium. Use a touch of butter (regular, full-fat, unsalted butter) if you're looking for that taste. Consider mixing the safflower with a pat of butter to get the high-temperature benefits of the oil with the taste of butter. For large quantities of frying, try a standard canola or vegetable oil blend (cheap!) or a peanut oil for a strong taste. People do, but personally I prefer not to cook with olive oil other than tossing at the end of cooking. It destroys some of the flavor, and olive oil is expensive to use in large quantities. I also like to use a touch of sesame or peanut oil in a dish to add a lot of flavor. Try mixing it with another oil because they are usually quite pungent.