Anthony Lombardi

I had a great time hiking with my friend Luke on Sunday May 2nd at Santa Teresa Park in south San Jose. The weather was perfect. We were there to help the California Native Plant Society find some rare plants. We got there late and ended up just doing our own thing, but I had the photos in my iPod Touch so we were able to do our own search anyway. Luke spotted this federally endangered plant called the Santa Clara Dudleya. We ended up running into the main group of people and they saw it too. We saw quite a few after the first one. It was easy to see why it’s endangered since it seemed to grow only among very rocky outcrops. It only grows in a couple very small areas in south San Jose.

Dudleya setchellli

Continue reading Santa Teresa Wildflower Hike

I finally got around to making something with rhubarb, and boy was it worth it. I’ve always liked rhubarb in jams and desserts. Sometimes I wonder if it’s really a coincidence that it goes well with strawberry, which happens to be the same color. I wonder if whatever causes the color also causes them to taste well together. I cheated slightly by using frozen pre-cut rhubarb (is it even in season right now?) that I got from Whole Foods. It’s great what you can get frozen these days. Often times frozen fruit is as good if not better than fresh because they’re able to freeze it at the utmost peak of ripeness.
Continue reading Strawberry Rhubarb Meringue Tart

I made this strawberry ice cream this past weekend from strawberries I bought at a random stand across from a gas station in Saratoga, CA. My fiance Lisa introduced me to the stand and now we go there every year because their strawberries are simply the best around. I made the ice cream the same evening that we bought them, and since they usually pick them the morning they sell them, they likely went from the ground to this ice cream in less than 24 hours. Talk about fresh! Boy did it make a difference too. This was the best tasting strawberry ice cream I’ve ever had. The recipe is from the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream book. Just looking at the color is a little misleading because it’s not very red, but the strawberry flavor is amazing even without a chunk of strawberry in your mouth. I’ll definitely be making this one again.

This past Valentine’s Day I made apple fritters for the first time. Lisa and I really enjoyed them. They’re slices of apple dipped in a batter, then fried to a crispy deep brown. They’re best served while still warm, dusted with some powdered sugar and cinnamon (in this case, Vietnamese cinnamon). It tasted best when it had cooled off enough not to burn your mouth, but was still crispy all around. If you wait too long, the moisture in the piping hot apple begins to soften the crispy coating. I noticed through some experimentation that they’re crispiest if they get a deep brown color.
Continue reading Apple Fritters

This is called Queen of Sheba. Pretty fancy name huh? Well it deserves it! I’ve made this chocolate torte quite a few times now, and every time I’m reminded of how good it is. If you’re looking for a super-chocolaty cake with a very unique texture, this is it.
Continue reading Queen of Sheba

This was a spur-of-the-moment idea I had, and it turned out very delicious. I toasted croissant halves (which you may not need to do if they’re fresh and crispy still), let them cool a bit, and then topped them with pastry cream lightened with whipped cream, fresh raspberries, and powdered sugar. I’m sure other fresh berries could be used as well, but I love the tartness of raspberries in this.

Incidentally, pastry cream is a nice thing to have on hand as well as a good way to use up extra whole milk. I normally don’t drink whole milk but I do use it in recipes sometimes. When I have enough of it left over, I usually make pastry cream and freeze it. The recipe I use is from the Baker’s Dozen Cookbook. Allrecipes also has a recipe, but it has twice the milk, twice the egg yolks, and butter. Other than that it’s the same, except for using a real vanilla bean rather than extract. Personally I like a perfectly smooth pastry cream, so I prefer the extract.

This is another use of the Danish dough that I used to make the Danish Twists recently. The recipe is in the good but out-of-print book “The Best Bread Ever“. I made the variation with raspberry jam and cream cheese. Personally I think the cream cheese isn’t really needed. I’d add more raspberry jam instead if I make it again. As with the Danish Twists, the dough turned out perfectly flaky and crisp. It tastes best the first day, but careful toasting in a toaster oven (speaking from experience, flaky dough like this can burn pretty quickly) makes it almost like just baked.

I’ve been wondering what other fillings might taste good. Apple, cherry, and lemon – basically anything you’d put in a pie – would probably all be excellent fillings. It would be a nice alternative to pies too, as the crust to filling ratio is much higher. And that’s exactly what you want when you have such a yummy crust!

One of the stranger things I’ve made, but very tasty too. This is tangerine juice, sugar, citric acid, methylcellulose, and xanthum gum, all blended together until it increases in volume 8 times. Then it’s baked in a 150 degree oven for 9-10 hours. The recipe is in Johnny Iuzzini’s book Dessert Fourplay. It’s actually just a component of one of his desserts, but it’s pretty nice as a light snack too.

Methylcellulose has the strange property of gelling when heated to a certain temperature, which helps keep the shape of these sticks when they’re baked.

My beautiful girlfriend Lisa and I are now engaged! As you can see in the picture below, I made a pretty crazy ice cream cake for her and wrote the proposal on top in funny spelling, with the ring in the middle. We jokingly talk like that sometimes. She laughed out loud when she saw it.

Continue reading Engaged!

Today, for the first time, I made some homemade bagels. Both Lisa and I agree they’re the best we’ve ever had! We ate them with the usual topping: cream cheese. Part of the reason they were so good may have been simply that they were fresh. The crust was nice and crisp and the crumb had the perfect spongy-chewy texture unique to bagels. I think I’ll be making these again sometime. Perhaps I’ll add some interesting toppings like sesame seed.
Continue reading Homemade Bagels