Video – Z's Cup of Tea

Bees, Ghosts, and Stop Motion: Links Roundup

Friday, March 16, 2012

In this brief and simple post, I’m sharing some links I’ve enjoyed, some of which I’ve shared on Twitter. In case you missed them, I’ve compiled them in a small round-up for your own personal enjoyment. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Videos:

Watch how to make spaghetti and guacamole in these fun and quirky short videos. (NB: do not try this at home!) If you like these two videos, he has lots of other fun little videos. These are his only two cooking ones so far, though.

In the News:

Do bees have their own personalities?
Can animals create art? (Includes honeycombs)

Warning: first article has an extreme zoomed in, closeup photo of a bee’s head at the top of the article. I am not a fan of those shots, they freak me out, but I managed to brace myself enough to read the article. Just scroll past it and carry on.

Luxury Comedy, it’s the end of the show…until next year with the second series! Read my review of the first series here.

And, taking a slightly more serious turn, ghost writers in the cookbook industry. (I’d like to have a discussion post with this article, as it has many interesting and valid points. Expect your perspective to be changed on the cookbook industry, and especially cookbooks by celebrities and chefs, once you have read it.)

Video: Browned Butter Blueberry Lemon Muffins (SCD & GFCF)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

These muffins are delectably moist and full of brown buttery, blueberry, lemony goodness. My siblings think that they taste like those store-bought blueberry breakfast muffins but better.

If you haven’t guessed already, they were made from Elana‘s Gluten-Free Cupcakes. I did hardly anything to change them, only subbing browned butter for the grapeseed oil, because I thought it would be fun, and honey for agave. Her recipes are that fine-tuned and simple.

The blueberries were flash frozen (they were bought fresh). If you haven’t flash frozen your food before, it’s a very easy thing to do – blueberries being the most common, apparently, according to Google. All you do is wash the blueberries, dry them thoroughly, spread them out a pan, making sure none of the berries touch each other, and freeze. After about an hour they’re ready to be popped into a bag until they’re needed.

I’ll do a post all about flash freezing one day.

Continue reading “Video: Browned Butter Blueberry Lemon Muffins (SCD & GFCF)”

How to Make Mayonnaise with Video (SCD & GFCF)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

For the longest time I started to associate mayonnaise with Julia Child – and I still kind of do. Her fascination and obsession with it, as described in My Life in France, was the same as mine when I stumble upon some personal culinary discovery and tweaking it until I’m satisfied with it (or other food-related piece of info). It’s my analytical brain, I’m sure; there are some foods that I have an utter fascination for strictly in the preparation – just the sheer magic of it – but I’m not as crazy about eating it.

In my local edition of Edible, there is an essay about mayonnaise followed by a recipe for preparing it. I have had past attempts at making mayonnaise, although not – in my view – very successful ones, at least not that I consider myself proud. Plus, I took issue with that one full cup of oil – back when I didn’t understand the chemistry of mayonnaise I thought it was too much. I thought it would be too oily.

It isn’t.

Like some things, such as mastering meringue without refined sugar or successfully poaching an egg, making mayonnaise and rising triumphant at the end is extremely gratifying. Now with experience under my belt, I feel that same, deep wonder that Julia Child felt.

I only truly understood how mayonnaise is created when I watched it happen, so I made a little video. It’s amazing to watch and even more amazing to watch it happen by your own hand – in other words, making it yourself. 🙂