earth food

grown from the page at earthside.org/Food & in support of the forth-coming cookbook of the same name by June Perg Floyd

Sunday, December 17, 2006

 

Instant Garlic Toast™ and Instant Garlic Toast Extreme

Original Instant Garlic Toast™

If you have a pop-up toaster handy, and some of that garlic juice in a pump-spray bottle, and some extra virgin olive oil, Original Instant Garlic Toast™ is within your grasp, and just moments away. Simply:

  1. Toast some bread
  2. Spread some olive oil on the toast
  3. Spray the oiled toast with some garlic juice

Logical standard substitutions and variations apply - for example:

  • butter, Brummel & Brown™ 30% yogurt spread, or other types of oils may serve in place of the extra virgin olive oil
  • Different types of bread should be tried
  • we would like to try this will walnut oil and sourdough bread
  • margarine is Evil, even if tasty - use it only at your peril and if you can't get any other ingredient for the oil layer
  • you can use an oven for this, but it takes longer - arguably, use of an oven contra-indicates the use of the term "Instant"
  • However, if you want cheese on your garlic toast, forgoing the "Instant" in favor of Traditional Over Garlic Toast™ is probably a good idea.

Instant Garlic Toast Extreme

If - like the folks here at Ghetto Kitchen Labs - you're not a sniveling, wimpy little consumer who lives in fear of kitchen appliances - and if you like your garlic toast hotter, with more olive oil and garlic than what you can feasibly get from applying the Original Instant Garlic Toast™ algorithm, you may want to try Instant Garlic Toast Extreme™ - it takes a bit longer to prepare, but we believe that the term "Instant" still applies, since this is just too easy - all that's required is a bit more vigilance against fires that may start due to mis-use of kitchen appliances - and for that reason, we are constrained to provide the following disclaimer of liability:

disclaimer

Disclaimer of Liability: Earth Food and Ghetto Kitchen Labs are collectively and individually not responsible for your screw-ups. Furthermore, we make no warranties or guarantees, neither expressed nor implied, concerning this algorithm or its suitability for any purpose, public or private, living or dead, summa cum laude. We haven't even tried this ourselves, and we don't recommend that you try it. In fact, we do recommend that you not read the rest of this article if you are the kind of person who would even think about blaming - or suing us - for any problem you have had in the past, have now, or may have in the future. We didn't do it, we weren't drunk, we weren't there. By reading the rest of this article, including the forthcoming algorithm for the production of Instant Garlic Toast Extreme™, you thereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless Earth Food, Ghetto Kitchen Labs, and all their respective employees, associates, owners, operators, and designees, henceforth, in perpetuity.

So don't blame us if your toaster catches fire, your home is destroyed, or any other disaster befalls you. Instant Garlic Toast Extreme is not for everyone, and it is certainly not for the faint of heart, or those with an impaired understanding of what makes smoke come out of kitchen appliances. Don't try this if your let kitchen appliances are mysterious or intimidating to you.

If, however, you are the kind of person who buys the toaster with the extra-wide slots - not so you can easily toast bagels, but because you found empirically that, while it is possible to squash a ham-and-cheese sandwich flat enough to fit into regular toaster slot, you just didn't want to have to work quite that hard at it, then this idea might be for you.

general considerations of production and use

The concept that underlies the production of Instant Garlic Toast Extreme™ is - like Instant Garlic Toast™ - relatively simple. The basic idea is that, when it comes to extra virgin olive oil and garlic, "more is better" - hence, while the ingredients for Instant Garlic Toast Extreme™ are the same as those for Original Instant Garlic Toast™, the proportions differ - specifically, the amount of bread remains the same, while the amounts of oil and garlic juice are increased proportionally.

Instant Garlic Toast Extreme™ also plays to the idea that olive oil and garlic juice - like the bread that carries them - are better consumed while still warm (perhaps even hot, but not so hot as to burn the roof of your mouth like, say, a pre-maturely delivered pizza).

With that in mind, the instructions are eerily similar to those for Original Instant Garlic Toast, differing only in degrees of precision, and in the number of [iterated] steps to accomplish the end result.

So [finally] here are the instructions for Instant Garlic Toast Extreme™:

  1. using a brush (or a paper towel, or your fingers, if you don't have brushes and paper towels lying about) carefully spread a layer of olive oil on the slice(s) of bread
  2. Spray the bread with garlic spray
  3. cycle the bread thru the toaster, using a "light" setting - the idea here is to warm the slices, perhaps toast them slightly, but not necessarily to brown them in one toasting, since this would result in burnt toast, eventually...
  4. Repeat from step one until the toast is browned, saturated with oil and garlic, and hot.
  5. Enjoy!

recommended side dishes

Both wine and pasta go very well with either Original Instant Garlic Toast™ or Instant Garlic Toast Extreme. We recommend Chianti and a thin vermicelli, ever so slightly al dente. Cheese of all sorts is also good.

additional caveats

  • If your supply of toasters, bread, garlic juice, olive oil, or whatever ingredients you are substituting, is either severely constrained, or critically limited, you probably shouldn't be trying this.
  • Some of the steps of the process will need to be performed once for each slice Instant Garlic Toast Extreme&trade: which you intend to produce - that is: twice for two slices, four times if you have a 4-slot toaster and want four slices, etc. If you don't "get" this, you probably shouldn't try this procedure.

future development

Note that Ghetto Kitchen Labs is also working on a process for Instant Garlic Toast ExtremeULTRA™. The experiments have had some limited success, but the the recovery of the cheese which slides off the bread and builds up in the bottom of the toaster is an economic concern for which we as yet have no definitive solutions in the short term.

As always: Have fun, and be careful.

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Friday, November 17, 2006

 

ginger sake microwave fried rice

Powdered ginger root and sake makes a good sauce - just put some powdered ginger root in a bowl or cup and moisten it with the sake; add sake and mix thoroughly tp get all the lumps out - add sake and stir until a desired consistency is achieved.

This turned out to be a good way to apply powdered ginger to a dish of rice, egg, and beef broth. Other seasonings used were chopped garlic, a mixture of chili-sesame oil and olive oil, and soy sauce.

The entire recipe went like this:

  1. In a ceramic (microwavable) bowl, combine cooked rice, beef broth, two raw eggs, oils, and chopped garlic "to taste"
  2. Use a chopstick to poke the yolks on the the eggs (this keeps them from exploding in the microwave)
  3. Microwave on high for a few minutes (how long will depend on your microwave and how much rice and broth you're using - 1500W microwave for 3 minutes should work - this works better if you cover the bowl)
  4. While the bowl is in the microwave, mix the the ginger sauce - You'll probably want to leave the bowl with the eggs & rice in the microwave after it stops running for a few minutes - but check it first to make sure it is hot - if the contents of the bowl is hot enough, and it is covered, the eggs will continue cooking from the heat in the bowl - this is fine, since they might not be done yet.
  5. Once the eggs are done (cooked through) take the bowl out of the microwave and add the ginger sauce (just pour it over the stuff in the bowl), then mix with chopsticks to spread the ginger sauce and break up the eggs. You might want to add a bit more oil at this point).
  6. Add soy sauce "to taste" (use a shaker bottle) and let the dish cool down enough to eat.

If you keep some cooked rice on hand (recommended that you do), preparation time for this dish is about 5 minutes, not counting time to let it cool enough to eat.

This makes a really tasty (assuming you got proportions of the ingredients that you like) sort of fried rice bowl.

The ginger sauce could be modified for use a dressing for noodle salads (maifun or saifun noodles, perhaps).

Other stuff could be added to the rice bowl - tofu, mushrooms, and vegetables spring to mind as items that would go well in this.

Note that powdered ginger root is sometimes sold as "galanga powder".

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