Announcing MY OpenSky Store

No it's not yet another store! :) It's my store! Meaning, it's the place where I share my personal recommendations on products related to the kitchen and styling based on my personal experience or stuff that really excite me.

When I first heard of Open Sky, I was curious about it's practicality. Then I thought about my own buying behavior. Even for the smallest item, I tend to do insane research {in my corporate life, I was/am a researcher. That tends to overrun into the personal :)} and if someone I know actually uses(d) that item then I definitely seek their feedback. I find this especially true for the kind of stuff that goes into food preparation and presentation, basically kitchen and styling.

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Daring Bakers July 2010: Ice Creams, Cakes and Bombes made in Heaven!

July 30, 2010 Update: This post was featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

If you have visited other Daring Bakers' blogs before you got here, you'll be surprised that my version looks, a tad, different. Well... Sunita did mention that she was happy to give leeway to our creativity in this challenge and I took her words truly to the spirit. :)

I was super excited to do this challenge. I mean, it's ice cream!!! Who woudn't be excited?! :) Trust her to pick the season perfect challenge! :) As temperatures soar across all seas and lands of the Northern Hemisphere, it's a solace to dig into a cool dessert and even better one made at home with the freshest ingredients like my Mango-Saffron Ice Cream. Plus, I had a bone to pick with Mr. FSK on the subject of homemade ice cream. This was the perfect opportunity!

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Photos, a few words and a Giveaway

I am not going to say much in this post. Just a bit! :)

• I want to share some easy recipes for everyday food perfect when you are cooking for small numbers, like ONE, but that can be easily scaled up for many more!
• As you know, I recently started the Farm to Table Series, inspired by my CSA baskets. You can access my recipes with seasonal, organic produce from the tab below the header or by clicking the nice produce basket in my sidebar...
• Also, I started a new photo initiative, a variation of Project 365 but just food! :) Check out my Project Food 365 photos.
• Plus, I have a wonderful giveaway later in the post.. :)

Roasted Beet and Strawberry Salad

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Homemade Tofu and a somewhat "Mapo Tofu" - Velveteers July 2010

This month is an exciting one for the Velveteers. We have a couple of new wonderful bloggers joining our group and partaking in the challenges. A warm welcome to everyone new and if you are curious as to who, it's at the end of the post.

This month's challenge was cause of some excitement for me. The theme was to make tofu from scratch, flavored or plain; firm or squiggly, and then use the same in a sweet or savory dish. Quite frankly, I am a picky tofu eater. It really depends on the dish. Mapo Tofu is my favorite tofu (?) dish and I have recently had good experiences with dessert tofu. I was hoping homemade tofu would be of a higher quality than store bought. And, fortunately it is!!!

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Farm to Table: Filipino Ginataan using Summer Squash

July 22, 2010 Update: This post was featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

Welcome to another edition of the Farm to Table series. This week, I am drawing inspiration from Filipino cuisine to showcase my ingredient of choice - Summer Squashes. Althea and I chose Ginataan as the theme, this month, for the Kulinarya Cooking Club.

General background on the dish from Wiki - Ginataan, alternatively spelled guinataan, is a Filipino term which refers to food cooked with gata- the Filipino word for coconut milk. Literally translated, ginataan means "done with coconut milk". Due to the general nature of the term, it can refer to a number of different dishes, each called ginataan, but distinct from one another.

It was as if they were made to be. I could not decide what type of ginataan to make and kept putting off making it. Then, last week, I found squashes in my CSA basket; Gorgeous, summer yellow, lovely flower shaped squashes. I later found out that they were called Scallop Squashes or Patty Pan Squashes. They were just perfectly formed, with not a single blemish on their soothing yellow skin.

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Fesenjan - Daring Cooks July 2010

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

I have to confess I didn't use a new recipe specifically for this challenge. I made a dish that I have written about here before and that I was anyway planning to make since we hadn't had it in a while...

Happily though, I think it is perhaps the best dish that I could have made for this challenge. Its richness is drawn from the thick walnut paste and hours of slow cooking that goes into it. If a culinary ode had to be made for nut butters, the Persian Fesenjan, is very well suited to do so! :)

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Herbed Butter Rolls and Garlic Scape Pesto

It has been awhile since I had baked bread! That needed to be remedied soon. With the temperatures soaring and hovering around the three digit marks, I didn't want to make anything fussy or that needed too much attention.

Fortunately for me, at around the time I had decided to bake bread again, my library pinged saying that the copy of Bread Baker's Apprentice that I had reserved was now available. A sign indeed. I love Peter Reinhart's book. Yes, it can be a bit of a long process what with all the starters going poolish but then hidden in there are some same day gems!

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Lines on the Palm and Rhubarb & Cherry Frangipane Tartelettes

I was musing today, as I am prone to when my mind flits idly over various topics, about fear, the Fear of Uncertainty. I don't think we fear life's up and downs; we treat that as inevitable. What we can't come to terms with, and hence worry about, is the uncertainty of events in life.

I am not one who believes in psychics and clairvoyants. My contention being, how can a person who has never set eyes on me, let alone exchanged a few words, be capable of predicting what lay ahead in my life which I really choose to lead?! But, I come from a country that does believe, to the point of entrusting faith and major life decisions, in these "life-readers".

I have wondered on and off about the reasons that drive people to such belief. One theory I came up was to find a scapegoat, a reason outside of self for failure. Calling a misfortune, destiny, feels like applying a balm to a wounded soul. There is a sense of control being elsewhere and hence how is one to blame for his misfortune.

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Camera ... Lights ... Action! Wait! Where are the PROPs?!

PROP - one innocent four letter word that sends shivers down mine and Mr. FSK's spines for completely different reasons! I look forward to the thrill of hunting, owning and using them. He looks on with dread as our tiny apartment slowly gets overrun by my various mismatched acquisitions! :)

To a food blogger, styling is integral to the presentation. While, one may argue that the dish should sell on it's own merit, I am firmly of the belief that subtle accessories are but an expected part of the process of making food look better! Towards that end, I have recently started hoarding stuff as also putting what I already own to more than utilitarian uses.

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Does My Blog Look Good In This (DMBLGIT) July 2010

I am happy to announce that I will be hosting the July edition of the popular food photography contest, Does My Blog Look Good In This (DMBLGIT) that was started by Andrew of Spittoon Extra.

I have been entering the contest for a few months now and have been thrilled to even win a couple! :) The contest has been such a source of inspiration for me to improve my photography and food styling. I gawked for hours on end at the incredible entries for past contests and longed to create such magic with my photos as well. That is still a work in progress but I am happy to have been introduced to some incredible bloggers through their work...

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Farm to Table: Fresh Peas and Rice Salad (Pulav)

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your kind words sent through comments, emails and tweets. I much appreciate your lending an ear for my vents, the virtual hugs, support and patronage. I am going to continue blogging because I love experimenting with food and photographing it just too much and doing it brings me a lot of joy...

Now, I am thinking of starting a new series of posts called Farm to Table. The idea was inspired by my CSA baskets. Every week, I am amazed at the freshness of the produce that we get. Ok, yes, we could definitely use less lettuce and more other veggies. But, I can't deny that the quality of the produce is simply fantastic!

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Sneak Peak: CSN Stores Review

Recently, a CSN Stores representative reached out to me with the idea of doing a review of their products. Poking around their site, I was amazed to find that they sell everything but the kitchen sink.. Wait! Perhaps, they sell that too. I didn't go looking for one.. Anyway, you can find anything you'll want for your house, on the site, from kitchen gadgets to furniture to lights!!

I haven't yet decided the product I want to review but I can tell you, it will be something from the kitchen line(but, ofcourse!). So, stay tuned for the review and an eventual giveaway...