Justin ordered one of Bali’s signature drinks, the young coconut water. It is served in the freshly opened coconut with some lime, sometimes sugar and ice. They also provide a spoon to scoop off the tender “meat” from the lid and the inside. On top of having excellent re-hydration properties, it is delicious and it looks just so exotic.

I was feeling a little more bubbly and ordered the ginger-lemongrass-fizz. It was sweet, tangy, spicy, so delicious! I am officially in love with any combination of ginger, lime, lemongrass, mint and some bubbles.

Food-wise, Justin had the Mie Goreng (fried noodles) which I don’t have a picture of, so sorry! I, on the other hand, had a photogenic Gado-Gado. An assortment of steamed or blanched vegetables presented in a cabbage wrap, with a hard boiled egg, potatoes, tofu, tempeh and lots of thick peanut sauce. Yumo-yumo!

For all this delicious food and delightful drinks, the total bill came to about $7. A pretty sweet deal for being stuffed, refreshed and entertained.

“Top Chef” Danilo with his intrepid afternoon cooking team.

Danilo has become a great friend and he let us use his kitchen to make some Gougères (cheese puffs). The entire crew knew we would be making “something” for them at 1pm and they were pretty excited.

The pressure was on. We then worked hard at stirring the dough…

… and carefully spooning the paste onto the baking pan under the attentive eye of the chief cook, when…

… I got held up by a ninja who wanted all my gougères! Ahhh!

Too bad, Jeoffrey, I recognized your eyeballs even under your very impressive mask. No gougères for you! Bah, not true… he was the first one to try them.

And here they are fresh out of the oven. They turned out really good, except we forgot we were dealing with real seamen and made them too small. They were half-bite-size for them! Oops.

It’s ok, we gave Danilo the recipe so he can make a bigger, more manly batch later.

Here’s the recipe for you too if you want to try making these yummy treats (based on Michael Ruhlman’s recipe):

Pâte à Choux

Yield: 80 small choux or 40 – 50 bigger choux

The following is a standard recipe for basic pâte a choux. To make cheese puffs, or any savory preparation, add two tablespoons of Parmigiano-Reggiano to the dough along with the eggs (top with more cheese to bake them). For a sweet puff, add two tablespoons of sugar to the water and butter as you heat it.

This recipe can be made all in the same pot using a stiff wood spoon, but it’s easier, and the dough puffs more, if you use a standing mixer with a paddle attachment or an electric hand mixer to beat in the eggs.

Ingredients:

* 1 cup water
* 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
* 1 cup flour
* 1 cup eggs (4 large eggs)

1. Bring the water and butter to a simmer over high heat.

2. Reduce the heat to medium, add the flour and stir rapidly. The flour will absorb the water quickly and a dough will form and pull away from the sides. Keep stirring to continue cooking the flour and cook off some of the water, another minute or two.

3.Transfer the paste a bowl (with high edges if you are using a hand mixer)

4. Add the eggs one at a time mixing rapidly until each is combined into the paste.
The paste will go from shiny to furry, slippery to sticky as the egg is incorporated.

5. Pipe or spoon the pâte à choux onto a baking sheet

6. Bake in a hot oven (220°C/425°F for 10 minutes, 180°C/350°F for another 30 minutes or so)

Voilà!

…ers.

Today, one big heirloom tomato from the farmer’s market I got yesterday, basil and Bravo Farms Gouda. I always have olive oil at my desk, as well well as salt and pepper.

And voila!

(iPhone pic)

Most people who sees me prepare my little salad at work just drool over how colorful, wholesome and healthy this looks. It took me 5 minutes to prepare and cost me about $5.

I’m blogging about it while I’m eating it and I’m enjoying every bite!

I come back to work and get an email announcing our new partnership with Serious Eats. It’s a very cool food blog that I’ve been visiting on and off. I scroll down and see an entire blog post dedicated to the upcoming movie “Food,Inc“. I thought to myself… what perfect timing! I can’t wait to go see that movie. It is time to be more responsible with what we put in our bodies. The market just needs demand. Demand, people! Demand!

Take a look:

It was a memorable experience we had at Harley Farms last weekend. We got to tour the farm, spend time with the goat, watch the mamas get milked, see how the cheese was made and savoured a delicious dinner with a group of like-minded people.

Photo by Kathy who took the tour and dinner with us

Note the glass of wine, while petting the goats… can’t get better than that!

Simply fantastic.

It was ready to get waxed. We melted just under 5 pounds of wax in a purchased-for-this-particular-purpose pot and dipped the cheese in the red liquid. It surprisingly cooled really fast which made the process of turning and dipping the cheese in the wax multiple times reasonably quick.

Here’s a shot right after the first dip. Justin posted some other really cool photos!

Since then, we made Cheddar #2 and Gouda #1 is air drying right now. Man, we’re going to have a lot of cheese in a few months!

1 – Heat up two gallons of whole milk to 90°F

2 – Add cultures and wait 45 minutes. Add Rennet and wait 45 minutes.

3 – The milk turns into something that looks very much like yogurt. It’s time to cut the curds!

4 – Cook the curds again in a bath of water (in the sink) and bring the temperature up to 100°F… no more than 2 degrees every 5 minutes, which is supposed to take about 30 minutes but really took us 45. We’re learning.

5 – Hang the curds.

6 – Line the mold with the cheese cloth and press it increasing the weight and turning the cheese periodically.
This process led us to put together a kick ass cheese press engineered and built by Justin. Tah-dah!!

7 – Take the cheese out of the mold and let it air dry for several days, turning it multiple times a day so moisture doesn’t collect at the bottom for too long.

8 – Wax the cheese and age it for at least 1 month. Ideally you want to wait for more than 6 months. Patience!

I really love the idea that you can grow something you can then eat off of a decorative frame in your living room or kitchen. Great alternative to just having a plant in a corner!

The only challenge (for us) is to find a piece of wall getting enough sun throughout the day.
I also couldn’t quite figure out how much it costs.