Blue Bottle Coffee

Ok, so we made a trip to Blue Bottle Coffee for their famed siphon coffee. Siphon coffee looks like a crazy science experiment. We waited about 40 minutes for this ultra popular brew. I have to say it was good. Not quite the flavor of espresso but flavor full none the less.


Siphon coffee makers are made up of four parts: the bottom container where the water initially sits and the brewed coffee eventually rests; a top container that has a siphon tube attached to it (and a hole in the bottom of the vessel), where the coffee brewing takes place; a type of sealing material (usually a rubber gasket) to help create a partial vacuum in the lower vessel while brewing is taking place, and a filter, which can be made of glass, paper, metal, or cloth.There is also a heating source, and there's usually three types - a cloth-wick alcohol burner (slowest), gas or electric stove top (faster), or a specialty butane burner (fastest). There are additional heating devices, including the halogen burner system that is part of the $20,000 setup that Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco has for their siphon coffee makers.


Savory
Salmon and herb twice baked souffles $5
Salmon, goat cheese, chives, tarragon

Thai chicken curry pot pie $5
chicken, carrots, green beans, rice noodles, coconut milk, peanut sauce.
Eggplant Lasagna Tart with Parmesan Basil Crust $5
Parmesan, basil, eggplant, ricotta, mozzarella, tomatoes

Quiona and sweet potato timbale $4
quiona, sweet potato, herbs, avocado

Soup/Stew
Hungarian Goulash $5/quart
Beef, Tomato sauce, onion - slow cooked

Sweets
Lemon Pudding Cake $5/cake
Puffy Lemon cake with a lemon custard

Fudge Pie - $5/piece
Rich, dense, bittersweet chocolate pie. No crust.

Spicy Apple Cookie $4/6cookie
apples, pumpkin pie spices, pecans

Pecan Raisin Cake - $4/piece
Pecans, raisins, with a glaze on top of cake

Delivery for 10am as I have helpers again this week.

If that doesn't work let me know and we can arrange another time

Bakeries around the world

My husband is still in Japan. We hope he makes in Stateside soon. During his time in Japan I have often sent him wondering the streets looking for baking/cooking items to send home to me. The latest is a Japanese hotpot. I saw a cookbook from a chef that used the hotpot to make various traditional and non-traditional dishes. I thought it would be a fun thing to add to my collection. I also had him send me knives (ceramic and Titanium) and lots of pictures of local bakeries (like the one above). The other pictures is of he City of Sasebo. Thought I you all would like to do some arm chair traveling with me.

This weekend I will be attending the Food Show in S.F. I can't wait! I got so much inspiration last year. I will try and blog/twitter from the show as best I can. They don't allow photography but I will see what I can sneak with the camera on my phone.

Menu

Creamy Mushroom and Chestnut Pie with Phyllo Crust $5/pie

A filling winter pie. Mushrooms, fresh chestnuts topped with a phyllo dough crust

Corn and Jalapeno cupcake with avocado frosting $3/cupcake

Savory cupcakes are big! Taste like tortilla chips and dip

Pear and Sausage Pie $5/pie

Ground Sausage Meat with a sweet pear in a puff pastry

Ham and Pea Popover Tart $4/piece

Ham, Peas, Cheese, red pepper, onion.

Bacon Apple Pie 5"pie $5

Crispy bacon and tart apples with a homemade pie crust. A GREAT combination!

Coconut Macaroons 6 cookies for $4

Coconut/almond macaroon topped with a bittersweet glaze.

Carmel/Chocolate Eclairs 2 eclairs for $5

Chocolate and Carmel filling together

Orange and Apricot Coffee cake $4/pie

Fresh Oranges, dried apricots with a crumb topping

Carrot and Coriander Soup $5/pint

Fresh Carrots, fresh coriander, lentils, vegetable stock

Deliveries Saturday only as I will be at the Food Show on Sunday! 10am - Noon

*Time change due to having kids to help me tomorrow.

a New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope everyone had a safe and fantastic holiday! I can hardly believe we are on to a New Year. Not sure where last year went. I spent the New Years bowling with lots of kids and a few adult friends. I even made it to midnight! Like a lot of people I start the New Year off with many goals, hopes and a few dreams. After working really hard from Thanksgiving to Christmas I always seem to want to start the year off with getting back to eating right! This year I felt like I needed to detox my system a little. So I am doing a mostly vegetarian diet for 30 days. On week one I have done well. I will keep you posted! I hope during this somewhat slower period to make some changes to the blog and have some plans for some new ideas in the spring for MagPies, that I would like to work on. Of course, I dream to travel a little more, continue educating myself in the world of food and perhaps have some sort of restaurant venue fall in my lap. I know I am not asking for much.

What are your New Year's Resolutions?

The pictures above are from San Francisco. My kids have taken a liking to the big City. It is such a huge benefit of living where we do. We get to live in a small community but get the excitement of a "big city". The pictures above show the ice skating rink in Union Square. A much suggested trip, if you haven't done so. So much fun! The pictures where taken with my cell phone so not the best quality but hopefully you get the idea!

So, I am thinking back to Saturday deliveries. What does everyone else think? Let me know if you have other ideas.

Menu

Ham, egg and spinach pie $5/piece

chunks of ham boiled egg and fresh spinach

Cauliflower Blue Cheese tart $5/pie

A mild blue cheese with cauliflower, garlic and leeks

Macaroni cheese with artichoke hearts and bacon $5/serving

Strong cheddar, tomatoes, Parmesan, lean bacon

Onion bhajis, harka dhal and almond rice $5/serving

Chickpea flour cumin, green chillies, onions, coriander green peas

Chorizo and chick pea stew $6/pint

Sliced chorizo chickpeas, onions, celery

Zucotto $4/serving

Like a tiramisu, this has soaked cake (orange flavors), sweetened cream and is topped with dark chocolate.

Persimmon Bars $4 for two bars

Soft Persimmons, dates cinnamon nutmeg, and pecan

Chocolate Bread with Dulce de leche spread $3/slice with spread

Dark Chocolate and homemade ducle de leche

Delivery 9:30a.m. to 11a.m.

Daring Bakers - Gingerbread Challenge!

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes. Thanks for such a great challenge!

Yes, after a little break, I am back to my Daring Bakers Challenge.

Building a gingerbread house is not an easy task! It is not just about baking, some architectural skills are required. Especially, if you decided to build a house as big as I did! This is where my husband comes in. He was the design genius. There is no way I could have figured it out without him. He has earned his Daring Baker points!

I had fun but plan to downsize by gingerbread house dreams, next time.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! See you in the New Year!

Christmas Week Goodies

Happy Holidays Everyone!

We will be doing delieveries on December 24th for the following:
Sweets
Gingerbread linzertorte $12
Caribbean mini Christmas cakes $15
Chocolate Peppermint TartPersimmon Pudding $15
Mincemeat Tart with Crumble $15
Scandinavian Princess Cake $25
Chocolate Cranberry Torte $15
Buche de Noel with Meringue Mushroom $15
Salt Licks x4 $18
Eggnog Custard Pie $12
Assorted Candies (oreo truffles, marzipan thins, chocolate orange peanut bark, bacon carmels) $20

Breakfast Goodies
Butterscotch cinnammon rolls (8 rolls) $12
Assorted Muffins (6 muffins) cranberry crunch, date walnut, pear muffins $8
German Apple Pancakes (shaped like a muffin and filled with apples) 6 pancakes for $7

Sides
Wild Mushroom Soup ($15 serves 4)
Shrimp Bisque ($20 serves 4)
Potato and celery root Rosti $10
Parker House Rolls $6 rolls ($5)

If I don't see you have a great holiday!

Christmas Cheer

With all the chaos of meeting orders and catering jobs for the holiday's, I sometimes lag behind in meeting my kids needs. They have been nagging me all week about going to get a Christmas Tree. I tried to convince them that we should put up our "fake tree" with all the matching decorations. After all, most of my friends have graduated to such trees. But, the kids somehow knew that was the easy way out. No, they wanted the real thing. So, I took out the seats of the van, loaded up all the kids and a friend to help carry the tree. Off to Larry's Produce (where I get my tree every year), in the mud and rain. Let the kids run around and pick the tree, which of course, was the biggest tree with more imperfections then I would like. Stuffed it into the van, pine needles everywhere. Got it home, shoved it into the stand (it barley fit) and then rummaged through the garage for the decorations. Of course, the kids still want to put up our mixed match lights (bubble lights that were popular in the 1970's) and they spent hours putting up the decorations, remembering each one made, given to us, and collected over the years. So, the fake tree stays in the loft for another year and the perfectly matched decorations continue to gather dust, but it is my guess, that my years are numbered for such events. When we all sat down exhausted from the days events we looked at our tree and commented on how it was the best tree we have ever had!

Sorry for the late posting. I really am! I wish I had one more hand!

Anyway, for delivery on Tuesday or whenever you would like

Soup
Tuscan Potato Soup $5
Italian Sausage, Potatoes, Chicken Broths, Pancetta, kale and sage.

Savory
Moroccan Flatbreads $4/flatbread
Bell Peppers, feta cheese and olives in a flatbread pocket

Chicken Pot Pie with Shitake Mushroom and sun dried Tomatoes $5
This is a winter version of traditional chicken pot pie.

Ground Beef and Curry Pie $5
ground beef, Madras curry, peas and potatoes.

Sweet
Parsnip buttermilk pie $4
This is sweet and tangy with a mouse texture.

Chocolate covered sandwich cookies with dulce de leche (6 cookies) $5
Homemade dulce de leche, a whole wheat cookie and topped with bittersweet chocolate

Amaretto apple streusel cupcakes $3/cupcake
apples, amaretto and an almond streusel.

Christmas Granola $5/bag
I made this for a customer recently and thought it was great. It has dried cranberries and cinnamon to make it suitable for this time of year

I don't know where the time goes! Since Wednesday, I have been trying to post the blog. Everyone is busy this time of year but for MagPies it has been particulary busy. Our catering has grown leaps and bounds this last year and we have a great following of loyal customers. Even though, I have been rolling pastry until my hands hurt some nights, I am thankful for the support of our small business. Many thanks all the new customers that are tasting our goods, many who are trying to committed to supporting local small businesses this year!

Please remember, that if my voicemail is full this time of year (which it seems to be this last week) you can always email. I will get back to you.

Ok, with that said,I better get the menu listed before something else prevents this posting!

Chicken and pesto pastie $3/pastie
a great lunch or quick dinner option
Apple Onion and cheddar pie $4/pie
sweet Onion, tart apples and strong cheddar cheese, with fresh thyme.
Winter Vegetable Crumble $5/crumble
parsnips, sweet potatoes, carrotts and with a crisp crumble.
Cupcake sized Pork Pies $4 for 2 pies
Ground pork, fresh sage and crispy pastry.

BlueBerry Museli bars with white chocolate $4 for 4 bars
these have blueberries (frozen from earlier on in the year), white chocolate, honey and cinnamon.

Bittersweet Chocolate and roasted pear tart $4/tart
Bittersweet chocolate and fresh pears. A great combination
Brown Butter Blondies $3/piece
the brown butter changes a regular blondie into something spectacular.
Eggnog Custard Pie $4/slice
A holiday favorite in a pie.

Split pea soup with green peas and dill $5
Spilt pea soup made with ham stock, whole peas and fresh dill

Delivery at the office in Fairfield from 9am - 11am