4 Condiments You Didn’t Know You Could (Easily) Make Yourself

Posted on June 6, 2014April 4, 2017 by Sarah

Many moons ago when I was in college, I somehow got recruited to help out with the production of the Senior Class Film. (At Wheaton College, where I went to school, every class made a film each year…some better than others…most better than this one.) I remember being really eager to be a big part of the production–after all, this was film we were talking about. Stardom! Fame! Playing to an audience of 2,000 who would promptly forget your class’s really bad movie! Yeah, it sounded awesome. In the end, though, I made no appearance in the film and for some reason the only thing I was called upon to contribute was a batch of fake blood.

What self-respecting college student wouldn’t take a picture like this after making fake blood?

What stood out to me about making fake blood was how easy it was. Surprisingly easy…sinisterly, wickedly easy. The only ingredients were water, corn syrup, food coloring, and corn starch. You don’t even have to go to the store to make blood!

Years later, as I became an adult trying to whip up meals for my family instead of bowls of fake blood for a class film, I realized a similar truth about condiments–those flavorful accompaniments that meals so much more enjoyable. Most condiments are made of very basic ingredients, meaning that when you run out of the pre-purchased kind, they aren’t usually too hard to throw together with things you already have on hand. Additional bonus: if you don’t like added sugars/chemicals/preservatives in your food, making your own condiments makes you the chef calling the shots.

Some condiments are, of course, more complicated than others. I’ve made teriyaki sauce from scratch and it was a paaaaaiiin. (Though it tasted fantastic.) So I thought I’d share four common condiments that are super simple to make from ingredients you probably have on hand–and taste a whole lot better than the store-bought version.

Ketchup

Since we just talked about fake blood, let’s start with ketchup, shall we? If you’ve never had homemade ketchup, you’re missing out. I made this not long ago when to accompany meatloaf and was amazed at how much more flavorful ketchup can be when you make it yourself and add your own mixture of spices. Since it uses tomato paste as its base, here’s a tip that has saved me many a can of wasted tomato paste: if you can’t use a whole can, freeze the remainder in 1-Tablespoon portions. So easy to pull out of the freezer when you just need that little bit!

Look at the baby tomato paste plops!

Ketchup
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

1 6-oz. can tomato paste
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. corn syrup
3/4 c. water

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over low heat. Simmer gently until you get the consistency of ketchup, 5-10 minutes.

Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Tartar Sauce

I don’t know about you, but I don’t recall ever getting through an entire jar of tartar sauce before its expiration date. Mixing it up in a single-serving quantity is now my modus tartarus sauce-i. Fresher, tastier, and all-around better!

Tartar Sauce
(From Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

1 c. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. sweet pickle relish
1 Tbsp. minced onion (or 3/4 tsp. onion powder)
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix together mayo, pickle relish, and minced onion. Stir in lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 1 cup.

Chocolate Syrup

Here’s an interesting blog post about the ingredients in Hershey’s chocolate syrup. If you get to the bottom of what Hershey’s and other companies put in their chocolate syrup, you’re kind of ruined for ever wanting to purchase it again. When I think of stirring chocolate syrup into my milkshake or drizzling it over ice cream, I for one am not thinking Mmmmm….Polysorbate 60. I’m thinking of cocoa powder, sugar, and vanilla, which is what this homemade version contains. It’s definitely thinner than the commercial version, which may take some getting used to, but it sweetens and chocolifies just as well (and you can keep thickening it with corn starch).

Chocolate Syrup
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

scant 3/4 c. water
3/4 c. white sugar
1/2 c. cocoa powder
dash salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. corn starch

Directions:

Combine the water, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a small saucepan over low heat. Whisk constantly until the mixture thickens and begins to simmer. Stir in vanilla. Slowly whisk in cornstarch until syrup has reached desired thickness.

Makes about 1 cup.

Taco Seasoning

I’ve been using this taco seasoning mix for years and have no intention of ever going back to the store-bought kind. When I start running low on it, I just set out my little assembly line of spices, systematically go through them with my measuring spoons, and ta-da! In moments I have a little snap-top Ziploc container (the size I used to cart my kids’ pacifiers around in) filled with taco seasoning. A good rule of thumb for using this mixture is 3 tablespoons per pound of meat.

Taco Seasoning
(From Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix all ingredients. Store in an air-tight container.

Makes 1 ounce.

Once you start making your own condiments, there’s no going back. Don’t be surprised if you find the cleaner ingredients and better, bolder flavors of the homemade versions keep you coming back to make just the little more effort it takes to whip them up yourself.

Coffee Tour of Seattle

Posted on April 5, 2014August 1, 2015 by Sarah

When you think of the city of Seattle, what comes to mind? The Space Needle? Frasier? Getting soaking wet 300 days a year? Grungy flannel-clad bands of the early ’90s? Or maybe you, like I, think of coffee. My bet is that most Starbucks customers (which is to say, like, 98% of the First World) has at least a back-of-the-mind knowledge that Starbucks began in Seattle–as well as the other successful coffee chain Seattle’s Best. (I know, that one came as a surprise, right?)

This past week I had the fantastic opportunity to join my husband on a business trip to Seattle. He had a tech conference to attend during the first two days of the week, so I was left to my own devices in an unfamiliar place, which I actually really enjoy. As an enthusiastic coffee drinker in a city with approximately 8 million coffee shops per square mile, a run-in with coffee was pretty much inevitable. But I definitely did not foresee the extremely exhaustive experience I ended up having!

My original plan was to register for one of the many food tours of the city. Years ago my husband and I went on a food tour of New York City, which made a huge impression on me (and my thighs–dear Lord, that was a LOT of food). But when I began checking in to food tour prices, I discovered they were higher than I was prepared to pay. Another tour with a slightly more budget-friendly price was Seattle By Foot‘s “Coffee Crawl.” I made the snap decision to register online late Sunday night for the next morning’s tour.

The tour was scheduled to begin at something called The Hammering Man, not far from Pike Place Market. I had a few moments of genuine concern when I scoured all four corners of the intersection and didn’t see a coffee shop called The Hammering Man. And then I looked up:

Behind The Hammering Man’s colossal foot stood a trim 50-ish guy with a pageboy cap and a sleek messenger bag. If anybody was giving a Seattle coffee tour, it had to be this guy. He introduced himself as Ed and said I was the only person to register for that morning’s tour–woohoo, a private tour for the price of a group tour! Yes, please!

Our first stop was the highly urban, metal-and-chrome Caffe Lladro. “Lladro” means thief in Spanish, and as Ed explained, there’s a reason behind this name. The shop’s founder was working for another coffee shop when he decided to strike out on his own in 1994. He opened Caffe Lladro directly across the street from his former employer, taking several recipes and company secrets with him. Twenty years later Caffe Lladro has 14 locations, while the other coffee shop has given way to a Starbucks. Ouch.

As for the actual coffee, my visit to Caffe Lladro included a sample of a Kenyan single-bean light roast brewed in a Chemex coffee maker, which looks like a laboratory beaker with a trendy belt.

Not being a fan of light roast coffee, this one was not my favorite, but I did appreciate that it was organic, fair trade, and shade grown. In terms of coffee ethics, it doesn’t get much more virtuous than that.

Our next stop was Caffe D’Arte, a family-owned coffee shop on 2nd Avenue and Pine. This shop has the distinction of being one of the only roasters to roast its beans over an alderwood fire. When Ed handed me a sample and asked me to smell it, I immediately caught a whiff of campfire smoke. Definitely a unique tasting experience! The barista then came over and poured this gorgeous work of latte art before my very eyes.

I was almost sorry to drink it. But not that sorry.

Up next on the tour was Ghost Alley Espresso. Founded by the daughter of longtime Pike Place Market vendors, this place has history coming out its ears. It sits nestled under the Market on the way to the Post Alley, home of the infamous Gum Wall, where thousands of people have stuck their used gum to create a disgustingly colorful attraction.

The entire interior of Ghost Alley Espresso only has about 100 square feet of space, with a single table for seating and creepy decor befitting its name. The founder apparently has a special place in her heart for the supernatural happenings around the market. Her book on the ghosts of the market is for sale on the shop’s narrow shelves. On our stop here, I sampled the Salted Nut Latte, which was a perfect balance of nutty and sweet. Highly recommended!

After Ghost Alley, Ed and I hunkered down for the longish walk in the blustering wind to Intrigue Chocolate Company. Here we met Aaron, the ebullient truffle chef behind this tiny chocolate-dedicated kitchen that doesn’t even have a storefront. I’ll tell you what: it drives me nuts when people throw around the term “artisan” like it’s a credential you can download off the internet, but Aaron is what I would call a true artisan–a worker skilled in a trade done by hand. He gave me samples of several of his uniquely flavored truffles: pineapple habanero, stout beer, ginger and rose, mint, and prune. This is as close to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory as it gets in the real world. So interesting to taste the richness of chocolate mingled with unexpected flavors like pineapple and ginger. Along with the truffles, I sampled a cold-brewed iced coffee concentrate Ed said has three times the caffeine of hot brewed coffee. Yeah, I was definitely getting wired by this point.

The last stop on the tour was the elegant, Italianate Caffe Umbria in Pioneer Square. Aesthetically, this shop was by far my favorite, with its mosaic tile vases, marble countertops, and wrought iron light fixtures. (I like to pretend I’m in Europe whenever possible.) The drink sample here was as tasteful as the shop itself: a classic espresso shot topped with sweet whipped cream.

And with that, the tour had come to a close. Looking back on my four days in Seattle, I have to say this tour was probably the best thing I did. It’s not every day you get to traipse around a new city with a personal coffee chauffeur, and I thoroughly enjoyed the drinks, the company, and the information. With a galloping heart and twitching eyelid, I said goodbye to my excellent guide Ed and headed out to explore more of the city. And believe it or not, I did not have any more coffee for the entire rest of the day.

9 Ways to Simplify This Holiday Season

Posted on November 4, 2013July 26, 2015 by Sarah

You might already have two questions about this post:

(Read these in your best Jim Gaffigan voice-in-the-audience’s-head tone)

1. Why is she talking about the holidays? It’s only November 3rd. Is this going to be one of those “Christmas Creep” things where we’re supposed to pretend the Christmas season starts the day after Halloween?

2. Does this have to do with food? If not, why is it on this blog? I thought the name was “A Love Letter to Food.” If it doesn’t have to do with eating, I’m going back to Paula Deen’s Miracles of Cool Whip on Food Network.

Well, that was significantly more than two questions, but the short version of the answers goes like this:

1. No, I am not participating in Christmas Creep! I am participating in the opposite! (Which for the sake of this blog, let’s call “Christmas Drag.”)

2. No, it doesn’t particularly have to do with food, but It’s my blog, so I can still write about it. 😉 But I promise this won’t happen too often.

The reason I bring all this up in early November is that this weekend I went clothes shopping at a couple of department stores and was totally overwhelmed with the craziness of Operation Christmas In Your Face. You know about this, right? As soon as the doors close on the trick-or-treaters, stores all around the country haul out their holiday bells and whistles and start trying to brainwash you into believing Christmas is just around the corner. Which, okay, it sort of is–but going into these stores seriously stressed me out. I felt like it was December 23rd, not November 3rd. The lines were long, there was Christmas music playing, Christmas decorations and ads everywhere, AND the lady behind me in line banged her cart into my ankle so hard I almost started crying in line.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.™

I came home with a resolution to simplify my holiday season this year. No one wants to feel harried, stressed, and bossed around by someone else’s agenda–commercial, familial, or otherwise–at the time of year that’s supposed to be about peace on earth and goodwill toward men. I know this is not a new story. It’s a repeat problem, one we all lament year after year. But my sense is that the lamenting doesn’t get us very far. This thing has to be approached with a PLAN.

So I gave it some thought and here are 9 of things I plan to do to this year to keep the sugar plums dancing in my head from driving me nuts…unless we’re talking about candied almonds. Then I’m on board.

1. Shop Online (aka Stay Away From Retail Stores in November/December)
No parking, no crowds, no lines, no annoying music, no overtired children (except for my own, but I can just put them to bed since, hey, I’m at home). Buying online, you are less likely to make impulse buys like those Godiva chocolates that seem to be at so many registers. Plus, I’ve learned there is SO much more selection of original gifts available online than at the mall. Etsy.com is one place to start; also check out the personalized gifts at Zazzle.com.

2. Plan Ahead.
It is only still November! If you get shopping and planning done little by little starting now, you have a guarantee of less stress down the road.

3. Keep an Excel Spreadsheet of Gifts and their Cost, Recipients, and Total Spending.
For me, part of the stress of Christmas gift-giving is the feeling that I’ve spent too much–though I don’t really know how much. Ugh, that’s a bad feeling. So this year I’m keeping tabs with a simple Excel spreadsheet. I enter the above four categories and it not only calculates my total, it helps me track who I’ve purchased for.

4. Buy handmade / local / edible / experiential / second-hand gifts, rather than STUFF.
Another part of negative emotion that can cloud Christmas is the feeling that you’re merely contributing to the overproduction/overconsumption cycle we Americans are so famous for. Buying gifts that don’t come from a department store and won’t clutter up someone else’s home helps you opt out of that. Plus, supporting local businesses, artisans, farmers’ markets, etc. helps your community.

5. Make Your own Simple Gift Wrap.
This may sound like a small thing to stress over, but buying gift wrap is one more expense around the holidays, and using it can be one more waste. This year I plan to follow the example of my inventive neighbors and take apart Trader Joe’s paper bags to use as wrapping paper (blank side out), stamping the front of each gift with an inexpensive but pretty Christmas stamp from Michael’s. The stamp will be reusable in years to come. This may not be practical with gifts for someone you really want to impress, but for any like-minded recipient (like my husband) it should be fine!

6. Pare Down the Decor
As Dr. Suess once said, “If decor is a chore, less can be more.” No, he actually didn’t, but if he ever wrote a children’s book about lowering stress levels at Christmas, this is what he would have said. Pick some of the your beloved decorations to put out and leave the rest in the garage this year.

7. Opt Out.
If your office / play group / 75-person extended family / Lithuanian Kazoo Players’ Guild does an annual gift exchange, would it really be so bad to opt out? Certainly most of us want to give meaningful presents to the people in our lives who mean the most, but if you’ve been invited to do a gift exchange with people you don’t see that often and/or aren’t major players in your life, maybe opting out is the lesser of two evils.

8. Limit to 2-3 Top Activities for December.
The great thing about Christmas is that it comes around every year. Sometimes we can feel the need to pack every fun Christmas-y experience possible into those three to four weeks leading up to the big day. But at a certain point, it simply becomes busyness. Pre-selecting only a small handful of activities to commit to (a performance of A Christmas Carol, ice skating, and one party, let’s say) adds more breathing room to the season. There’s always next year for the life-size gingerbread house making extravaganza.

9. SERVE!
As you limit your calendar in December, take advantage of the extra time to find a way to serve others in need. There’s nothing like it for putting Christmas craziness in perspective. You can be sure local homeless shelters, St. Vincent de Paul, nursing homes, and those they serve will be thankful for your help–and have lots for you to do.

On that note, I’ll leave you with a song that captures my point with this post:

5 Totally-Worth-It Small Kitchen Appliances

Posted on October 24, 2013August 2, 2015 by Sarah

Probably most people who have a kitchen have a few basic kitchen appliances. I’d be willing to guess that if you’re reading this on a computer somewhere in the First World, you probably own a blender, a toaster, and maybe even a crock pot, if you’re married. (Crock pots just seem like one of those things people love to give as wedding presents.) But for the serious-ish cook, these few basics really don’t cover the spectrum of cooking you’re likely to want to do. As I’ve become more experienced in the kitchen, I’ve found that my repertoire of small appliances has become pretty varied. Still, I don’t believe you need to amass an army of kitchen robots to do your culinary bidding. Allow me to share the few special ones I think are worth going the extra mile for. If this were a playlist, these small appliances would be the “deep cuts.”

P.S. For the pictures, I really wanted to top each of these off with a party hat to show enthusiasm…but I didn’t have any party hats and I don’t actually know how to use Photoshop. So, you know, use your imagination.

1. Juicer

See? The top is almost like a party hat–or a sombrero!

This little guy has been going strong for over 20 years. It was a hand-me-down from my mom, who received it as a gift for her wedding in 1991. To my knowledge, it has never been repaired or had any parts replaced (nor, until this photo, had it been cleaned in 22 years…ahem). So yay Oster “Designer” Citrus Juicer! You win the prize for durability.

I have to say I’m surprised how often I use this thing. Granted, I live in Arizona, where citrus abounds, so I might be a little biased in the direction of frequent usage of a juicer, but no joke, I find I get this out at least once a month. Obviously, it’s a workhorse for when someone gives you a giant bag of grapefruit you’re not going to eat every day at breakfast–but it’s also a handy gizmo for the smaller fresh-fruit-juice jobs, too. I don’t actually drink fruit juice, but I’m a big ban of fresh when it comes to juice in recipes. Fresh lemon juice in a lemon meringue pie or fresh lime juice in a salad dressing far has so much more pep (or dare I say “zest”?) than the bottled variety. So the juicer makes the top five.

2. Food Processor

Am I just imagining it…or is that another party hat?

Yes, I know I waxed poetic in a previous post about my food processor, but I’m gonna say it again: this is one heckuva kitchen appliance. It is the Slicer-Dicer-Chopper-Cutter of infomercial legend. (Call now and you’ll receive THIS FREE GIFT!!!) Hummus, pesto, black bean puree, shortbread dough, and shredded carrots are just a few of the things I’ve made with mine recently. New York Times columnist and cookbook author Mark Bittman says, “after the refrigerator, and maybe the dishwasher, it’s the most useful kitchen appliance invented in the twentieth century.” You could make baby food and kill a man with this machine.

3. Ice Cream Maker

“Yeah, it makes ice cream,” you might be thinking. And you’d be right. It makes ice cream and not much else (unless you count sherbet, sorbet, and gelato). Obviously, an ice cream maker is not as multifunctional as some of the other appliances on this list, but it’s still worth getting. If you, like me, enjoy ice cream and care about the ingredients in your food, making your own starts to look pretty attractive. Ice cream should not contain artificial colors or flavors, hydrogenated oils, or anything else wacky–and it doesn’t have to. All it needs is to start is cream and sugar…and this little machine.

4. Electric Griddle

Have you ever tried cooking pancakes for a crowd on a stovetop skillet? You’ll get three good-sized pancakes at a time, max, and then everyone is sitting there waiting wondering how long this is gonna take while those three pancakes get cold at the bottom of a dish while you make three more at a time until finally everyone can eat. Whoa, this sounds like a pancake stress dream. Enter the electric griddle. I was skeptical about getting this–believe it or not, it was my husband who wanted one of these–but since we have owned one, I’ve become a believer. I thought this black monolith would sit in our pantry collecting dust, but we use it surprisingly often. In addition to pancakes (which it helps with beautifully), the electric griddle works like a dream for eggs, bacon, French toast, grilled cheese and other hot sandwiches, tortilla warming, and even funnel cake, in case you’re feeling like a trip to the state fair without involving carnies and hog judging.

5. Immersion Blender

Meet my new baby–er, blender. I don’t want to put a hat on this one. I want to knit it its own special blender cozy and tuck it into its sweet little blender bed. I want to keep it safe and snug where no one can ever hurt it. Because this, THIS, is my favorite kitchen appliance. Partly because I love its playful turquoise color; partly because I saved up and bought it for myself after lusting for it on Amazon for months…but mostly because it is fabulous. As a soup lover who has made the hot, messy mistake of trying to puree soup in a blender, I can say that that one function alone makes this gadget worth it. But really, the sky is the limit with this thing. Besides blending soups, an immersion blender does the job on mashed potatoes/sweet potatoes, smoothies, sauces, berries, and whipped cream. It’s extremely light and (at least in this model) the bottom detaches so it can go right in the dishwasher. Plus, on Amazon you can get it in something like 25 colors, from sage green to sugared plum to metallic pink.

So if you don’t have some of these, go get working on your Christmas list! Awesome cooking awaits!

The Curiosities of British Cuisine

Posted on August 23, 2013August 3, 2015 by Sarah

If you’ve been wondering why it’s been so quiet around here, it’s because, by a fabulous stroke of good fortune, I spent last week in England and Wales. My husband was invited to a conference in Cardiff (the capitol of Wales) and I got to tag along as we spent two days there, one day in Bristol, and three days in London. It was a mind-blowing trip in many ways:

iconic landmarks,

cathedrals,

boat tours,

giant Gromit statues in wildly inappropriate places, like in front of this 12th century cathedral,

and this terrifying creature–

but for the purposes of this blog, of course, allow me to focus on the food! It seems to me the English get a bad rap for their cuisine, and frankly, I’m not going to do a whole lot to remedy that stereotype. However, certain assumptions of mine about English food were definitely debunked, so all in all I would call my general food experience in the UK educational. For example, prior to visiting the UK, I probably would have assumed:

“Bubble and Squeak” were cartoon characters
“Rarebit” was a silly British spelling of rabbit, like “kerb” for curb and “tyre” for tire
That there would have to be more to a dish called “mushy peas” than just peas mashed up baby food-style
“Bangers and Mash” was a TV crime fighting duo, like Cagney & Lacey or Rizzoli & Isles
“Pork pie” was the punchline of a dirty joke

Wrong on all counts! As it turns out,

Bubble and squeak is leftover vegetables (typically from a roast) mixed with mashed potatoes
Rarebit is essentially just melted cheese on toast
Mushy peas are exactly what comes out of a Gerber jar
Bangers and mash is sausage served over mashed potatoes
A pork pie is literally a chunk of pork sausage in pie crust:

This entree was called the Ploughman’s Board–behold the pork pie in the upper left!

On a more positive note, while my husband spent the day at his conference, I traipsed around Cardiff and found a sweet little tea shop where I enjoyed a traditional afternoon tea:

Finger sandwiches, scone with clotted cream and jelly, and of course TEA! (I went with ginger peach.)

Other culinary highlights included tasty fish and chips and some smokin’ spicy Indian food on the south side of the Thames, revealing the perpetually embarrassing problem of my nose running like the Amazon whenever I eat really spicy food. (Emily Post would be horrified at how much snot ended up on my dinner napkin.) Then again, my husband had to leave the table to go wash his mouth out, so I’m telling you, it was really spicy. I should probably also mention that we drank way more alcohol over there than we normally do, especially some delightfully fizzy and refreshing pear cider. This seems to be the norm in the UK, though–Sunday morning, the only open restaurant we found was a bar that served breakfast, where more people were drinking beer than coffee at 9:00am.

Last but not least, I have to say how much I enjoyed stocking up on British candy, and how humorous the candy bar names strike me: Teasers, Minstrels, Wispa, Jelly Babies (like gummy bears, but baby-shaped–anyone else find this creepy?). Then again, I guess American candy bars have silly, frivolous names, too: Butterfinger, Snickers, Mr. Goodbar. (Presumably Dryfinger, Whimpers, and Mr. Seriousbar are not top sellers.)