Sunday, October 17, 2010

October: Pumpkin Appetizers and more!














Thanks for everyone that showed up to the first cooking meeting of Food at UCLA. We ended up creating 5 total dishes because we had some leftover ingredients after creating the pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, and stuffed pumpkin. The other two dishes were roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin cookies. Some of the recipes posted earlier were modified and will be e-mailed in the next newsletter.

In other news, a website for shall be up and running within this month!

Here's a few pictures of our success!


















Healthy Pumpkin Bread



















Pumpkin Soup



















Stuffed Pumpkin


















Pumpkin Cookies

Sunday, October 10, 2010

October: Appetizer Recipes

Here is a list of recipes that we will be making Friday, October 15, 2010. RSVP by Thursday, October 14, 2010. There will be a limited space of 10 people.

Pumpkin Bread provided by Cynthia


Ingredients
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
5 egg whites
1 cup applesauce
...2/3 cup buttermilk
1 to 1/2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Cook: 350 degrees F, 50 minutes, 3 9x5 loaf pans

Pumpkin Soup (Modified from AllRecipes.com)
Enough to feed an army

Ingredients
6 cups chicken stock
4 cups pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Fresh black crushed pepper and salt

Directions
1. In a pot, heat oil, add onion, garlic, and pumpkin.
2. Sautee for about 1-2 minutes until fragrant.
3. Add stock, salt, thyme, pepper, and bring to a boil then simmer for 30
minutes.
4. Puree soup in a blender.
5. Serve with drizzle of heavy cream and garnish with parsley
6. Heat stock, salt, pumpkin, onion, thyme, garlic, and peppercorns. Bring to a
boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 30 minutes uncovered.

Baked Stuffed Pumpkin (Modified from CountryLiving.com)
Serves 4

Ingredients
4 ounce(s) sweet Italian sausage
1/2 cup(s) chopped onion
1 (1 1/2-pound ) pumpkin, peeled, seeded, and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1/2 cup(s) chopped Granny Smith apples
1/4 cup(s) white wine
1 cup(s) Israeli couscous, cooked
1/4 cup(s) dried cranberries
1 tablespoon(s) extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon(s) fresh thyme
1 teaspoon(s) fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 teaspoon(s) salt
1/4 teaspoon(s) fresh ground pepper
4 small (1-pound) pumpkins, hollowed out

Directions
Make the stuffing:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Decase and crumble the sausage meat and place it in a large saucepan over
medium-low heat.
3. Cook the sausage until it is almost done -- about 8 minutes. Remove the
sausage from the pan, increase heat to medium
4. Add the onion and 2 cups of the chopped pumpkin. Sauté until the
pumpkin begins to soften -- 5 to 7 minutes.
5. Add the chopped apple and sausage and sauté for 3 minutes.
6. Add the wine, cook for 2 minutes, remove from heat, and set aside.
7. Combine the couscous, dried cranberries, olive oil, thyme, oregano, salt,
and pepper in a large bowl. Add meat mixture to the bowl and toss to
combine.

Bake the pumpkins:
1. Evenly fill the hollowed-out pumpkins with the stuffing mixture.
2. Place the pumpkins in a shallow baking dish.
3. Cover the dish with aluminum foil
4. Bake for 25 minutes
5. Remove the foil and bake for 10 more minutes
6. Serve immediately.

[Week 3] Newsletter

Hello foodies!

DineLA recap
Last week, we did not have a meeting. Instead, the club went out to La Vecchia Cucina, an Italian restaurant, for DineLA. Thanks to all the people that showed up. It was a great opportunity to explore and taste "higher" end food. Overall, the group had an average rating of about 7.0 out of 10. DineLA is still going on next week! If you missed out, it is still not too late to go.Here's their website: http://discoverlosangeles.com/restaurantweekv2/details.html?id=12071.

Upcoming Restaurant Events

October 11, 2010 (Monday)
The Stand Hot Dog Run
Meet at Bruin Bear at 7:15pm.

On Monday, The Stand has $1 hot dogs, $1.50 hot dogs with 3 special toppings, and $2 amber ale. If your going to go e-mail foodatucla@gmail.com. Their hot dogs are delicious!

October 19, 2010 (Tuesday)
Tengu Sake Sampler
Meet at Bruin Bear at 7:00pm

Tengu will have a sake sampler. See flier below for details. RSVP at foodatucla@gmail.com or let Jon know that you are coming by October 15, 2010. Must be over 21 to go.
http://www.tengu.com/_files/MLG_364_tasting.jpg

Monthly Theme (Pumpkin)
READ EVERYTHING!!!!
Appetizers
October 15, 2010 (Friday)
Meet at the Bruin Bear at 6:00 pm (we're going to Trader Joes then Jon's apt)
RSVP by October 14, 2010

This month, our theme is pumpkin in celebration of fall and Halloween. This week, we are going to make 2 appetizers and a bread. The bread is pumpkin bread, provided by Cynthia (our Vice President). The other appetizers are pumpkin soup and stuffed pumpkin. During this meeting, we will learn how to select pumpkins, improve knife skills, and heat control.

The recipes for these dishes are going to be under the section Theme or Recipes. Read it over! It will be your homework!!!. If you have any other recipes, please e-mail them to foodatucla@gmail.com.

Come with a partially empty stomach because we might not eat until 7:30 or something.

Things to bring
:
Kitchen knife and cutting board. I don't have enough boards and knives.
Bring like around $10 for food supplies. We'll divide the total cost of food at the meeting after buying the ingredients.

Cya at the events!
Your lovely president,
Jon

Monday, October 4, 2010

[Week 2] Newsletter

Hello foodies!

Thanks to all the people that showed up to the meeting last Friday. The food was delicious! We had vodka cream sauce pasta, rice balls, peach cobbler, and tropical orgasm (drink). The recipes will be posted on our website foodatucla.blogspot.com.

Events

October 8th, 2010: 7:00pm
Dine LA

Instead of a meeting at Jon's apartment, there will be a restaurant outing at La Vecchia Cucina Friday night. We will be meeting at Akerman Turnaround at 6:50pm and will be leaving at approximately 7:15 pm. RSVP at foodatucla@gmail.com. There are reservations for 10, first come first serve, expect for drivers. Drivers get first priority. Bring about 40 dollars to include tax and tip in the bill.

Here's the address and menu of the place.

2654 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405
lavecchia.com
310.399.7979

http://discoverlosangeles.com/restaurantweekv2/details.html?id=12071

October 19th, 2010: 7:00pm Tuesday.

Tengu Sake Sampler

Tengu will have a sake sampler. See flier below. RSVP at foodatucla@gmail.com by October 15, 2010.

http://www.tengu.com/_files/MLG_364_tasting.jpg

Monthly Theme

Find recipes for the following for next week:

Stuffed pumpkin and soup e-mail recipes to foodatucla@gmail.com by October 13, Wednesday.

October 15, 2010: 6:30pm Friday.

We will be meeting at Jon’s apartment at 6:30 and go shopping at Trader Joes for ingredients for Stuffed pumpkin and pumpkin soup.

Recipe of the week

Spaghetti alla Carbonara brought to you by Jon

Ingredients

5 slabs Bacon

2 Eggs

1 Egg yolk

1/2 lb Spaghetti

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup Romano cheese

1 tbs Combination ground Green pepper, white pepper, black pepper (you can exclude green if you can't find it or you can also use medley of peppercorns from your local supermarket)

Salt

Preparation for simplicity

1. Beat the egg, egg yolk

2. Mix in cheeses, peppers, and salt

3. Boil water with salt in it

4. Warm up a bowl by putting it in the oven (use thermometer and check if 80-100F range)

*Note before cooking: Make sure when you mix the pasta the egg does not curdle or be too liquidy. Temperature control is key.

Cooking*

1. Throw in noodles to cook for 10-15 minutes

2. In a pan heat up a little oil and cook bacon until crispy

3. Chop bacon into bits

4. Remove noodles and add to bacon fat/oil and toss around quickly.

5. Remove bowl from oven and throw in bacon and noodles

6. Slowly drip the egg mixture while stirring quickly until noodles are evenly coated.

2nd Meeting Recap

Successful meeting, thanks to everyone who came!

We decided on La Vecchia Cucina in Santa Monica for Dine LA on Friday 7:30. We also figured out the ingredients needed for pumpkin appetizers: stuffed pumpkin and pumpkin soup. Please look up recipes for these items.

For this week's meeting, Jon made pasta with vodka tomato cream sauce. Nancyx2 brought onigiri with salmon and perilla seasoning. Candace brought peach cobbler. For drinks, Anthony made Tropical Orgasm. Jealous much? Recipes will be posted later.