Weekend dinners: duck and bean soup, seared duck breasts

It’s been raining hard for two days straight and while we might get a break later this afternoon it will start again tonight. Time to pull down the soup pot and clean out the supplies of stock in the freezer.

Today Dave is picking up a duck for me at an Asian supermarket. I’ve put small white beans on to cook with savory, thyme, and garlic and pulled out a quart of double-strength duck stock. This will be the start of a duck and bean soup that takes its source flavors from French cassoulet. I love cassoulet but don’t keep all the bits on hand that go in for a really authentic one. I'll add some onions cooked with homemade pancetta to the pot when the beans are tender. The cooked beans will rest until Sunday. In the meantime, tonight I will cut up the fresh duck. I will put a curing rub (salt, sugar, pink salt, lavender) on the legs and season the breasts, and refrigerate both.

Tomorrow afternoon I will poach the duck legs in duck fat for about four hours, making duck confit. The duck breasts we will have for dinner on Saturday night, with blue cheese polenta, carrots, and a green salad. I’ve been poaching some pears in a red wine syrup with vanilla and star anise, and I suspect we’ll have those for dessert if we don’t gobble them all down tonight.

On Sunday morning I will add some tomato paste and the duck confit to the beans I cooked today. I also have a chicken breast and thighs that I poached in duck fat that I will pull out of the freezer and add to the pot. I will slow cook this in the oven for several hours, and then add a breadcrumb crust to the top of it and cook it some more. After the crust gets really crisp, I will stir it into the rest of the beans. This is a pretty classic part of a cassoulet recipe. By dinner time on Sunday, it should be ready to eat. Some crusty bread and a green salad with some cheese, and we’re good to go.

What's for dinner: Prime NY steak w/brandy cream

Major score at Costco this week: fresh Brussels sprouts and USDA Prime NY steaks.

I realize that the little cabbages aren’t on most people’s list of favs, but I’ve converted more than a few people when I braise them with bacon and maple syrup, a trick I learned in a cooking class. Just slice them in half so they can soak up all that nice flavor, and if you finish cooking them without a lid you won’t end up with that nasty sulfur aroma.

These steaks had the most beautiful marbling, and were almost 1 ½” thick. I rubbed them with kosher salt and mushroom powder and let them sit out until they were room temp. Then I rub them with a little olive oil and into a really hot skillet for three minutes on a side. Don’t touch them until the three minutes are up if you want the most beautiful caramelized surface. Then into a 400-degree oven for four minutes. Put them on a plate to rest and made the pan sauce: add a couple of tablespoons of minced onion to the skillet (back on the heat) and stir until the onion is translucent, scraping up the fond in the skillet. Then pull the skillet off the heat and add a couple of tablespoons of brandy; tilt the pan as you put if back on the burner and the brandy will flame. I used more like ¼ cup of brandy (4Tbs), and got flames mostly up to the kitchen ceiling (and we have high ceilings!). But no damage, even kept my eyebrows and I didn’t drop the skillet when it happened. I guess I’m getting used to flambéing. Once the flames went out I added some salt and about a tablespoon of flour, since I wanted the sauce to cling a bit to the meat. Stirred until the flour was cooked and then added heavy cream until I got the consistency I wanted. Did I mention that this meal was designed to harden your arteries even as you prepared it? Anyway, once the sauce was done and I corrected the seasonings, I put the steaks back in the pan for just a bit to coat them in sauce, and plated it up.

You could almost cut the steaks with a glance. Incredibly buttery and tender, and a perfect medium rare all the way through.

We had a nice salad of baby greens with blue cheese crumbles and candied pecans in a raspberry vinaigrette to round out the meal. No leftovers tonight!

The Joy of Oysters

Like your first kiss, I believe you always remember your first raw oyster. Where you were, who you were with, how your stomach did a little flip-flop as you contemplated it, how easy it was to have another after that first one.

After spending a few hours with other oyster lovers at an oyster harvest/beach BBQ last weekend, I'm even more convinced that I'm right. I overheard several people reminiscing about their first oyster, and it did sound like they were talking about their first kiss. So you heard it here first: first kiss=first raw oyster.

We actually didn't eat raw oysters that day, but there were plenty of barbecued ones.

It was an absolutely gorgeous, picture-puzzle kind of day.

Gathering oysters? Not so glamorous. This black "primordial ooze" sucked me in up to my knees. Not pretty, and it smelled less than pristine.

What's for dinner: Beef tenderloin roasted in salt crust

Have to make room in the freezer for all that sausage, so I pulled out a small (1lb) beef tenderloin roast I cut the last time we bought a whole tenderloin. I had leftover egg whites from making frozen custard and pastry cream, and we’d bought a big bag of table salt to use to try out salt crust roasting. So tonight seemed like a good time to try it.

I had seasoned the beef with green and pink peppercorns before I froze it. So I just mixed the egg whites with 2 pounds of salt, then made a1/2” deep base layer on a foil-covered sheet pan. Beef goes on top of that, insert a probe thermometer so I know for sure when it’s done (looking for 125 degrees). Spooning the salt over the top and sides was like working with wet sand, and went very smoothly. Put into the oven on 450 degree convection roast. Also put in a foil pouch of new potatoes with just salt, butter, and parsley and thawed out some gold and pink beets I’d roasted and put away last week. Dinner will be late (Dave worked today, and worked late) but good.

The Great Grind: Italian Sausage

This sausage project started because of Dave’s monthly card game with his buddies. He hosted it a few weeks ago and I made them Italian sausages with peppers and onions for dinner, and had mixed the peppers and onions into a homemade tomato sauce. Dave wanted more, he loved it. And we’ve been getting piles of bell peppers in our CSA basket, I can’t eat them, and we needed a way to not waste them. This week I made more than a gallon of homemade marinara with roasted peppers and onions, which has gone into freezer containers. It just seemed like it would be fun to make our own sausage for it, especially since I have a lot of fresh sage right now.

We then picked up a whole boneless pork butt, this one was a little smaller than I usually get, only ten pounds. Certainly enough for plenty of sausage, though! I started making sausages after I took a class at Culinary Communion a couple of years ago. Then I bought “Charcuterie” by Ruhlman and Polcyn, a great reference book for so many things preserved. I made their Italian sausage recipe the first time, probably two years ago. Since then I have tuned the seasonings and method, doing my usual literature surveys in my collection and online. And before anyone emails me about this, yes, I know that “true” Italian sausage doesn’t have paprika, parsley, and anise seed, at least to the purists. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with improving flavor. I use a heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer for this, with grinder and sausage stuffer attachments. You can use a hand grinder, too. If you use ground pork from your butcher, be sure to beat the seasoned pork to develop the myocin as described in the first paragraph of the recipe – your results will be so much better, even if you are only making a breakfast sausage with salt, sage, and pepper.

Shelly’s Italian-style Sausage

• Three pounds of pork butt, cut into ½” dice (do not trim fat off!)
• ½ t anise seed
• 1 ½ t black peppercorns
• 4 t fennel seed
• 4 t salt
• 1 T minced fresh sage (or 1 t dried)
• 2 t hot paprika
• 2 t sweet paprika
• 2 T puréed fresh garlic
• 1 ½ T chopped parsley
• 2 oz dry red wine
• About 5 feet of hog or artificial casings, if you want sausage links, cut into 3- to 4-foot lengths

Grind anise and peppercorns together, then add the fennel seed and crush it but don’t grind it to a powder. I use a mortar and pestle for this but can be done in a spice grinder or coffee grinder, of course. Add all ingredients to the pork and mix thoroughly. Refrigerate overnight. Next day, run the pork through a grinder with the medium plate. Grind it into a bowl set in another bowl filled with ice. It is important to keep the fat cold, if it melts your sausage will have a curdled texture and the fat will all drain away when you cook it, leaving it dry and with a lot less flavor. Fry about an ounce and taste to check for seasonings. Adjust as needed. Then either in one big bowl with your hands or a wooden spoon, or in batches in a heavy-duty mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the meat until you see it get sticky and it looks like threads are developing in it. This process develops a protein in the meat called myocin, and it’s what makes sausage more than just some seasoned ground meat. The myocin gives the sausage a smoother texture and helps it hold together instead of being crumbly. Do not skip this step if you want really good sausage! Put the sausage back into the refrigerator for an hour or so until it is cold again.

In the meantime, if you are making links prepare the casings according to the instructions on the package. If there are no instructions, soak natural casings in cold water for about an hour until they are soft, then run water through the casings. Set up your sausage grinder with a stuffing tube, great the outside of the tube, and feed a couple of the lengths of casing onto it. Pull the casing until you have about 2 inches hanging off of the end of the stuffing tube. Do not tie this off. Cut yourself twice as many 4” pieces of kitchen twine as you have pieces of casing. Put a big sheet pan under the stuffing tube and rub about a tablespoon of water across this. The water makes the sausage slide easily on the pan while it rests as it comes off the stuffer. Start feeding the pork into your stuffer, and stop as soon as the meat begins to appear in the casing. With your fingers, smooth the casing over the meat and push out any air from the end of the casing. Then tie off the end of the casing next to the meat. Continue to feed pork into the stuffer, making sure the casing is evenly filled but not stretched as tight as it will go – you’ll need a little bit of give to twist the links. The sausage will be about 1 ¼” in diameter as it comes off the stuffing tube. When you can see that you have about two inches of casing left on the tube, stop feeding and gently ease the end of the sausage off the tube. While the sausage sits on the sheet pan, smooth out any uneven spots, and then squeeze all the air out of the open end of the casing and then tie it off with one of your pieces of kitchen twine. Continue with the rest of the pork and the casings.

To twist the sausage into links, begin from the left end of the sausage. Move your left hand in six inches (or as long as you want your links) in from one end, and place your right hand the same distance farther in on the sausage. Squeeze with your thumb and forefinger on both hands to divide the sausage, then grasp the link that is between your hands and twist it toward you two times. Move your left hand six inches in from the rightmost twist, and your right hand six inches to the right of your left hand. Once again squeeze your thumbs and forefingers together to divide the sausage, but this time twist the link away from you two time. Repeat this process, twisting toward you the next time and away from you the time after that.

Of course, you can just form the sausage into logs, wrap them in plastic and chill, then freeze them and slice off what you need in patties, or make patties and freeze them on a sheet pan then put into freezer bags.

Store the sausage in the refrigerator overnight before cooking. The sausage will keep about three days refrigerated or a month or two frozen. When you cook them, cook to an internal temperature of about 160-165 degrees. I put them in a skillet with six ounces of water, and cover to steam them gently for about 15 minutes, then uncover and brown them or put them on a grill.

(recipe copyright 2008, Vivian R. Johnsen)

Rum balls, in advance of the holiday season

These things last forever. Seriously, I've kept them on a shelf in a sealed container for two years and they were still great. And they don't taste like raisins, good thing since I'm not wild about raisins. The original version of this came from my ex-mother-in-law, Doris. I've tweaked it since then, but still want to give her credit as I think this recipe has been passed down for several generations.

• 2 C raisins
• 2 C walnuts or pecans
• 1 lb vanilla wafers
• 2 C powdered sugar
• 2 T cocoa
• 3/4 C rum or bourbon, or other flavorful liquor
• 1/3 C light corn syrup
• More powdered sugar, for coating

Grind together raisins, nuts and cookies. Mix in remaining ingredients. Roll into 1" balls and roll in additional powdered sugar. Makes dozens.

Notes: I put half the raisins, half the nuts, and half the cookies into my food processor and grind them together then repeat with the rest. Pour everything into a big big bowl, it will make it a lot easier to get your hands or a big wooden spoon in to mix everything together. Sometimes (okay, most times) I use more liquor than called for. I also double the cocoa sometimes, which would make a lot of sense if you are using a flavored liquor like Sabra where you want to bring out the chocolate flavor. Also if you are using Sabra, you could use a couple of tablespoons of finely grated orange rind.

Today's cooking projects: corned beef hash and pepper and onion marinara

Once again, I am consumed by a request from my better half. Wants Italian sausages and a marinara with peppers and onions. Today I am taking care of the sauce. Giant can of diced tomatoes in juice. Two cans of organic tomato paste. Two giant yellow onions, ½” sliced Lyonnaise-style (pole to pole). One quart of frozen roasted assorted peppers, ½” slices. Five cups of diced fresh bell peppers. (Why five cups? Because that’s what I need to use up!) Assorted dried Italian herbs, fresh rosemary and fresh sage. Three tablespoons of chopped garlic. Chop lots more garlic because I’m making ten pounds of sausage tomorrow, but that’s another story. I have a silicone trivet that I use to roll the garlic cloves in, takes the skin right off. Then I use a coarse Microplane to process the garlic, five minutes or so and I have a big pile of chopped garlic. Lots of fresh ground black pepper. Crushed red pepper. Saute onions in olive oil, add peppers and garlic, stir to coat, toss in everything else. Simmer all afternoon. It’s tasting good – even to me, and I have a serious dislike of, as well as an allergy to, bell peppers.

Dinner tonight will be corned beef hash. The other day I pulled the last chunk of homemade corned beef out of the freezer. I was contemplating the cooking method when I realized that the FoodSaver vacuum bag it was in would be a wonderful cooking container for a long slow trip through the oven. So I threw it in the oven at 200 degrees overnight. No muss, no fuss. Then I refrigerated it in its juices. Today I will dice up the corned beef and some red potatoes, steam the potatoes to parcook them, and then fry up the whole mess with some onions. A little horseradish on the side, some boiled turnip greens or maybe arugula, and a real comfort-food dinner for us. Guess we’ll have beer or iced tea to drink, can’t imagine the wine I’d pair with this one. I’ll keep back some of the corned beef and slice enough for a couple of Reuben sandwiches, and freeze it for another day. I will have to set aside some time to cure some more corned beef sometime. It’s been really good.

Now, I just have to figure out where to keep more than a gallon of marinara…

Coconut cream pie outcome

Well, the crust with the coconut was certainly a challenge, and the filling is a little time-intensive, but the result is quite nice, as you can see. The toasted coconut flakes and white chocolate shavings make a very nice finish.

So, here’s the overall recipe with my tweaks and lessons learned. The garnish is straight from the triple coconut cream pie that Tom Douglas’ restaurants serve around the Seattle downtown area.

Crust: 9” baked deep dish pie crust, optionally add 2 T of sweetened flake coconut to the pastry dough 1 oz white chocolate, melted with 1 t heavy cream (also optional)

Spoon melted white chocolate into cooled pie crust, brushing it up the sides of the crust. Set aside to harden.

Coconut custard: ¼ C sugar 3 T cornstarch ¼ t salt 2 C whole milk 2 T butter 2 egg yolks 1 t vanilla ¾ C sweetened flaked coconut

Whisk sugar and cornstarch together in a medium saucepan or in the top of a double boiler. Whisk in milk, add butter, and heat over medium heat, stirring or whisking constantly, until mixture thickens. Whisk egg yolks until blended. Ladle about a cup of the thickened mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then add the egg yolk mixture back into the saucepan, mixing thoroughly. Cook stirring constantly, until thickened again. Set aside to cool, stir in vanilla and coconut, then refrigerate.

Fill crust with custard. Top pie with lightly sweetened whipped cream and garnish with toasted unsweetened coconut flakes and white chocolate curls.

Recipe copyright 2008, Vivian R. Johnsen

More dessert fun: Frozen custard

Yes, I am very good to my husband. He mentions he'd like ice cream, I make some. In between tasks with the coconut cream pie, I decided to try making some frozen custard. Now, I can only imagine what the "real thing" tastes like, as that seems to be an East Coast product that I've not encountered. But hey, I can make a custard. In fact, I can make one up:

3 cups whole milk 3/4 cup of sugar, divided 1/2 vanilla bean, split 1/4 t salt Four egg yolks 1 T cornstarch

Mix the milk with 1/2 cup sugar, the salt, and the vanilla bean in a medium saucepan. Slowly bring to just below a simmer, stirring occasionally. Whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar and the cornstarch. When the milk is hot, whisk about a cup of it gradually into the egg yolks (this is called tempering and will keep your egg yolks from scrambling). Pour the egg mixture back into the pan with the rest of the milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Do not boil it. I recommend you use a silicone spatula to stir will so you can thoroughly scrape the bottom of the pan. If you do get the custard too hot, it may curdle. But since you are going to freeze it, this really isn't a dreadful problem.

Strain the thickened custard into a container and cool, then refrigerate it at least eight hours or overnight. If you skip this step your final product won't be as creamy. Freeze the custard according to the instructions with your ice cream maker. When the ice cream maker is done, pack the soft custard into a container and put it into the freezer to finish hardening. When you're ready to serve it, put it into the fridge for about 15 minutes so it can soften just a bit.

If frozen custard doesn't taste like this, it should.

(Recipe copyright 2008, V. R. Johnsen)

What's for dessert: Coconut cream pie

A couple of weeks ago I was channel surfing on a Saturday and ran across Tom Douglas, a well-known local chef, making his signature triple-coconut cream pie. I’ve had this wonder more than once at his restaurants, and I think I could eat a whole pie at one sitting. Since then, Dave and I have been gathering the ingredients for a coconut cream pie. I don’t have Tom’s recipe, but the filling is a pastry cream with sweetened flaked coconut added. That’s not hard to do, and I used a recipe out of one of my favorite cookbooks, a first edition of the New York Times Cookbook, edited by Craig Claiborne. A lot of times when I do a literature search through my cookbook collection, I try to be sure to pull in a “vintage” cookbook for comparison. It helps me get perspective sometimes, especially when I run across something like the squirrel stew in the White House Cookbook from the late 1800’s. Once again I am using the vodka pastry recipe from Cook’s Illustrated with the addition of flaked coconut. The pie gets topped with whipped cream, toasted coconut flakes, and white chocolate shavings. I’m thinking about brushing a layer of melted white chocolate on the crust before putting in the filling – I think it will help the crust stay a little crisper and add a nice rich flavor.

You know, I’ve always said I'm not a baker, but I sure seem to be writing a lot about baking these days. At least I’ve gotten to the point where I have more successes than failures, and that feels pretty good. In the end, the way to get comfortable with any kind of cooking is to not worry when something doesn’t turn out – as long as you learn something in the process you can carry forward to the next project. That’s been hard for me to accept sometimes because of course I want everything perfect the first time. But accepting failure is key to becoming fearless in the kitchen.

What's for dinner: filet au poivre, brisket chili with winter squash

We bought a whole tenderloin at Costco this week. If you consider the price of steak, it’s actually kind of economical to buy a whole roast and cut it up yourself. With this abundance, I’ve cut a roast off of it and am letting it marinate in a rub of herbes de provence, minced shallot, ground peppercorns, kosher salt, and olive oil. Once it’s had some time to think about its fate, I will tie it up into a compact roast and put it into a 425 degree oven for 25-35 minutes, then immediately into the freezer. This results in a great texture and amazing juiciness. We’ll slice that and serve with dandelion greens sautéed in bacon, garlic, and shallots and smashed potatoes. Probably start with some sliced heirloom tomatoes as some of them are beginning to look like it’s time to be eaten. I have great piles of fresh basil growing in my AeroGardens so we have no shortage of tomato seasoning.

We’re also making dinner for tomorrow. The cover recipe from the new Bon Appétit is “Texas Brisket Chili with Winter Squash.” Dave looked at the recipe and got a hankering for it, so we also bought some brisket at Costco. Already had all the other ingredients, in fact I’ve been looking for ways to use all the winter squash that’s been in our CSA basket. Calls for a red chile sauce from dried chiles, cumin, garlic, oregano, chili powder, tomatoes, and fresh green chiles. Now it’s in the oven for three hours until the cubed brisket is tender, then add the squash and cook for another hour. I’ll chill it out on the deck for a little while, then refrigerate for dinner tomorrow.

Another chore today was cleaning out the vegetable bins in the fridge. Now I have a pot of vegetable stock cooking on the stove, with carrots, celery, onion, fennel, celery, and other bits and pieces tossed in. No, I don’t know what I’ll make from the stock, but whatever it is, it will start with a tasty base. With the fennel in it, a minestrone might be a good idea.

If you like Cook's Illustrated or America's Test Kitchen...

...then you might get a kick out of this. Tonight we went and met Chris Kimball, the host of America’s Test Kitchen show on PBS and the founder and editor of Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines. Dave and I have been fans and subscribers to Cook’s Illustrated for many years. It was fun to hear him talk about some of the experiences he’s had, including his encounters with Julia Child. He has his “patter” and his funny stories down pat, but it didn’t feel like he was rehashing something he’d been saying dozens of times. Perhaps the funniest stories were of tricks his staff has played on him when they are taping ATK. Like the time he was supposed to be taste-testing butter on bread, and they smeared hot chile paste under the butter. Then when he reached for a glass of water and drank about a third of it, he realized he was drinking gin. I even got him to autograph one of my cookbooks. (I have a nice collection of autographed cookbooks. Even two autographed by Julia Child.)

Anyway, if he ever comes to your neighborhood and you have a chance to go hear him, I recommend it.

Inventing a new cookie!

Yes, it’s true, there is nothing really new under the sun. But there are many variations, and I think Dave and I have collaborated on something with real potential.

As you’ve read before, we’ve been doing a lot of things with a crostada dough that we really like. It has cornmeal in it for a nice texture and a bit of citrus zest. Dave came up with the idea of using it as a ravioli dough to make sweet ravioli. I was intrigued. We had (again) lots of apples from the CSA basket, varieties well-suited to cooking. He made up a batch of the dough and put it in the fridge, and we debated the filling. I thought the best way to deal with the apples was to cut them into small dice, that way they would fill the ravioli a little better, fewer air pockets. We pre-cooked the apples after letting them sit in sugar a little while so we had some apple juice in which to simmer them. Then we added some herbs – for reasons I’ll explain below I will not tell you what we used.

The dough got rolled out to the dimensions of our ravioli plaque. If you’re not familiar with this tool, it’s a sheet of metal on little feet, divided into 12 ravioli shapes. The center of each shape is cut out, so you can lay a piece of dough across it and use a plastic plate with 12 round bumps just the size of the cutouts to press down and get a “top” layer with indentations for holding a filling. We filled each indentation with about a tablespoon of our apple filling, the laid another piece of dough across the top after brushing it with an egg wash. Then you just roll a rolling pin across the top to press the two layers together and separate the ravioli.

We brushed each piece with egg wash and sprinkled them with raw sugar, and baked them. All we can say is – YUM.

Why am I not publishing the recipe? Because for the first time we have something that maybe I’ll enter in a recipe contest. So stay tuned for info about that, when/if it happens.

If you want to see pictures, you can go to my blog where they are published. I thought that might be a more polite way to use photos, particularly for those of you with dial-up connections.

What not to eat for dinner

Every once in a while, when they send me a coupon for free delivery, I order groceries from Safeway online and have them brought to my front door. It is a significant convenience, as living here in a condo our parking is underground and it is quite a schlep to bring stuff up. In fact, we have a couple of folding, rolling baskets that we keep around for the chore.

On this latest order Safeway was also offering me a free meal – some new frozen dinner that you merely needed to cook for ten minutes and serve. I haven’t tried frozen meals in quite a long time, so I wondered if there had been any improvements in quality, through new production or storage technology. So I ordered the “chicken and Portobello mushrooms fettucine with alfredo sauce.” Gave that a try last night. I will save you the trouble!

I prepared it according to instructions – dump everything into a skillet and cook covered on medium for five minutes, stir and separate the pasta, and cook for another five minutes until the sauce boils for one minute. The time wasn’t enough, more like 20 minutes, but that was no big deal. The pasta even had a nice texture, so looks like progress on that front. But I thought the sauce was under-seasoned so added salt and some shredded fresh basil and dished it up.

Now for the good, the bad, and the ugly: the pasta had a good texture, it was cut thick enough to stand up to the freezing. The chicken was nondescript. The sauce was still anemic, so we grated some Parmigiano-Reggiano over it. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig! That was the bad. The ugly? Well, the portobello mushroom pieces were gritty. There were tomato pieces, too, and the freezing had caused the meat of the tomato to disintegrate, and what was left were some really tough pieces of tomato skin.

The moral? It really only takes a few minutes more to cook some pasta while you sauté a chicken breast and mushroom pieces and finish it with a little cream, cheese, and chopped tomato. In 30 minutes you can have a very good meal, instead of a high-sodium, high-fat shadow of a good meal.

What's for dinner: Another spin on chili, fruit ravioli

I usually make chili by rubbing a chuck roast with spices and let it sit overnight, then searing and braising it. Shred it up, and add the other ingredients and simmer. This time Dave asked me to try it with the meat cut in small cubes, so of course I am doing that. I figured I need a different cut of beef for this, one that holds together when it’s well-cooked. So I bought some beef bottom-round and cut it into about 1/3” dice. Tossed that with the spice mix last night and let it sit. Also took a half-dozen dried red chiles and put them in water, and soaked 2 cups of pinto beans. Today the beans go on in plan water with fresh epazote, oregano, and dried bay leaf, they get salt and garlic when they are almost done. The meat gets browned in an enameled casserole, then the onions go in until they are translucent, and all the red chile pulp and the soaking juice go in with some cumin and salt. For now both pots are simmering away. My brother Bryan is coming for dinner tonight so I’ll get a little fancier and we will have some cornbread with it; maybe I’ll whip up a little honey butter. I also have some Mexican sour cream, crema agria, and that will be good with it. No tomatoes in the chili today. But it does have the usual cinnamon and cocoa that I like in the spice rub. For dessert, Dave is going to play with the crostada dough and make raviolis stuffed with an apple compote. The concept is his idea, the filling is mine. I think they will turn out like nice little fruit-filled pastry cookies, and be great with a little bit of vanilla bean ice cream. The cornmeal in the crostada dough will be a nice echo of the cornbread served with the chili.

Fun at Elliott's and Steelhead Diner

I like cooking so much that sometimes I forget that it's fun to go out. Today it was a double-shot of fun. First we (me, Dave, and an out of town business guest of his) went down the street to the bar at Elliott's Oyster House. They were having their annual celebration of the fall oysters. Steeply discounted drinks (94-cent beer!), and lots of good free food: oysters on the half shell, oysters Rockefeller, two other baked oysters, smoked salmon with garnishes, prawn shooters, fried razor clams, ancho-grilled shrimp. Quite the spread. But we weren't done! On up to Steelhead Diner for dinner. Our guest enjoyed the gumbo as much as we do, ditto with the kasu black cod. I had yet another rendition of their clam chowder, this one creamy, with razor clams (yum!), fresh corn, and a drizzle of white truffle oil. It was a fun dinner, and gave me some new ideas for cooking. It was also nice to say hello to Chef Kevin, who gave me a giant "Bramble" apple to bring home and try -- it is about the size of a grapefruit. He says it's good with cabrales blue cheese, so maybe we'll just eat that as a salad tomorrow.

What's for dinner: Paella

Today I spent a few hours volunteering on a campaign for a tax levy to support the Pike Place Market. Most of you have never been there, I know, but it is the oldest continuously running farmers’ market in the US, and I live practically next door to it. I bundled up 18,000 pieces of literature today! Anyway, I walked home a different way, taking me past “The Spanish Table.” Spanish Table is a great store, carries Spanish and middle-eastern ingredients, wines, kitchenware, cheeses, sausages. I couldn’t resist poking my head in. While there I realized that if I picked up some dry Spanish chorizo and some special Spanish piquillo peppers, I’d have everything to make paella. So I discarded the notion of roasting fish on a bed of fennel fronds, making paella is fun and Dave loves it.

One of the things that’s cool about making paella is that once you’ve got all the ingredients prepped and lined up on the counter, it goes together quite quickly. I’m using a saffron-shellfish stock for the broth, and chorizo and calamari as the proteins. It also takes really big white beans, only need a couple of dozen of them so am cooking them this afternoon. I’ll also need to add some vegetable interest, and am assuming that the CSA bag that comes home with Dave today will have something useful in it. If not, I’ll peel and dice some carrots. I will literally have 8-10 little prep dishes of ingredients lined up by the stove.

The lineup will be: oil, onions, garlic, tomato, chorizo, rice, herbs, broth, beans, calamari (diced), piquillo peppers, chopped parsley. Not an incredibly fancy paella, but one more likely to be served to family in Valencia, though they might add snails because they are quite common (I can do without them!).

What's for dinner: ribs, chard, potato salad, chocolate cake experiment

The ribs that I mentioned in my last post look and taste like they may be the best ones I’ve ever done. The mustard baste is a nice counterpoint to the brown sugar, smoked paprika, coriander, and cumin in the rub. They are still in the warming oven, waiting for Dave to get home, but I of course have had a little taste – quality control, you know. I put them in the oven before 7 this morning at 250 degrees, and they were already tender at 11.

I had chard from the farm, the kind with pink and yellow and orange stems. I wanted to sauté it in bacon fat, but didn’t have any on hand. But I came up with what I think is a clever solution. I have chunk bacon in the freezer, as I make my own and only slice it as we need it. I used my coarse Microplane to grate a couple of tablespoons of fluffy frozen bacon fat into the pan, then added onions and the chopped chard stems to that and cooked it until the onion was translucent. Then I put in the shredded chard leaves. Worked quite well; we’ll see what Dave thinks.

Cooking potatoes for potato salad was a puzzle I’ve been trying to solve for a while: boil the potatoes whole, then peel and chunk while hot and toss with vinegar, cube the potatoes and boil them and drain them, or what. Today I settled on red potatoes, skin on, cubed and steamed. Then I was able to drizzle cider vinegar over them while they were still in the steamer. I like the results. As I’ve said before, I am kind of a purist when it comes to potato salad: potatoes, eggs, onion, celery, mayo (only Best Foods/Hellman’s will do), and yellow or Dijon mustard. Today I added fresh lemon thyme as I had some of that from the farm.

Finally, I’ve had a craving for chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting for several days now. I was going to make “fake” fudge today, which is choc chips melted with sweetened condensed milk. The last time I made that I realized that it’s not really fudge, it’s a form of ganache. While I was toasting pecans to go into the fudge, I thought that maybe I should make a chocolate buttermilk sheet cake and use the fudge mixture as an icing. So that is what we are going to do this evening. I’ve been on my feet too long today so I’ll have Dave make the cake when he gets home. I’ll add the pecans and also toffee bits to the fudge. It won’t be a thick layer because the fudge recipe normally goes into a 6x9 pan, and this will be spread on a 9x13 cake. I’ll let you know how the chocolate cake experiment goes.

What's for dinner: boneless short ribs

I’ve always wanted to cook short ribs, they are such a good candidate for my favorite cooking technique, braising. The other day I picked up some boneless chuck short ribs at the local warehouse store, they looked beautiful and I just had to have them. Also picked up mushrooms and new red potatoes, with stew on my mind.

I kind of started with chef Tyler Florence’s recipe for “bistro-style short ribs” but, as usual, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. What I borrowed from him is the use of pureed mirepoix as a base for a braise. (He also uses this in making Bolognese sauce, and I’ve done that, too, with good results.) The boneless ribs (kind of an oxymoron, don’t you think?) did have a lot of outside fat, which I trimmed off, and inside marbling which was going to make the sauce very good.

I cut the meat into 2”x3” chunks and seared it hard on a griddle, to get more flavor into the braise. I then cooked the mirepoix puree - carrots, onions, celery, tomato, garlic – in my oval braisier until it smelled cooked and some of the moisture had cooked off. Added 2 cups of leftover pinot noir. (Yes, I know, how often in my house is wine “left over?” Not often, but that’s beside the point. We’ve found a bargain pinot that we like quite a bit, Pepperwood Grove, and at its price point I don’t mind using it for cooking as well as drinking.) The night before, I had taken 2 pounds of white mushrooms, quartered them, and cooked them in the oven, covered, until I had nice mushroom juice. I reduced the juice by half and added that and a cup of beef broth to the pan, and brought it to a boil. Stirred in the mushrooms and put all the meat into the pan, made sure the liquid covered it. Covered the pan and put it into a 325 degree oven for three hours. I skimmed off the fat that accumulated on top of the sauce, didn’t really need that in there. Served over smashed red potatoes, this was just great. Maybe a little heavy for an indian summer day, but we didn't care.

Tonight we’re having baby back ribs, nine or ten hours in the oven, I rubbed them Monday with a nice seasoning that includes Spanish smoked paprika, to give them a little bbq taste. I will mop them today with a baste that includes cider vinegar, mustard, honey, thyme, and savory among other things. It’s a Carolina-style baste, they do usually seem to use yellow mustard. More on that later, when we see how they turn out.

Four alliums, two nightshades, and a big squid

Tonight's dinner is born out of desperation. The CSA baskets are full of tomatoes, eggplant, summer squash (still!), and I'm still working on onions and leeks from last week. And in a silly impulse, I had my husband buy a box of frozen calamari steaks at the local restaurant supply. I don't have room in my freezer for five pounds of calamari steaks, what was I thinking? So we are having angel hair pasta and julienned calamari with a piquant sauce of julienned eggplant, chopped seeded tomatoes, capers, minced leek, chopped onion, minced garlic, and minced shallot. I've broken the pasta into three-inch lengths to more closely match the 3" x 1/4" strips of calamari. I’m using a small green eggplant, doesn’t have much in the way of seeds so it shouldn't have any bitterness, and also soak up some of the tomato flavor. The tomatoes themselves are quite wonderful, organic heirloom varieties that taste like what tomatoes are supposed to. I'm throwing in a brunoise (very fine dice, 1/16th”) of summer squash just because it's there and it does soak up flavors nicely. And as long as it’s cut very small, it won’t add a rubbery or spongy texture, which does happen sometimes with summer squash. Aside from all the prep involved, it also goes together nice and fast, as we have to dash off to a baseball game tonight. At least this is the last week of the season, no postseason for the astonishingly incompetent Mariners...

What's for dinner: 'but cheeks, sous vide

No kidding, that's how I order them from the fish guy. I love halibut cheeks, they are very different in texture from the rest of the fish, longer strands of muscle rather than flakes. They soak up flavors pretty well, too. I've decided that since the scallops prepared sous vide on Friday turned out so well we should try some other proteins cooked that way. I vacuum packed the ‘but cheeks with a couple of slices of lemon, salt, olive oil, sorrel, thyme, and oregano (all fresh). I thought about adding some veg, even in a different package, but the temp for cooked vegetables is higher than the 140 degrees for fish. So I think I’ll fry some diced potatoes, give us a texture contrast to the softness of the ‘but cheeks. Add a green salad, and it will be dinner.

What's for Dinner: Rack of lamb, stir-fry

I’ll bundle two reports in here for the price of one. We’ve had absolutely gorgeous weather up here (many apologies to those who haven’t) so we had to get up and grill at least once this weekend. We have to use a shared gas grill due to our location in a condo. Not really too bad, but we do have to haul a lot of stuff up there sometimes. But the outcome was very nice, as the rack of lamb picture shows. I rubbed it with an herb paste, all of the herb fresh, using oregano, thyme, savory, parsley and rosemary as well as a little leek all ground together with some salt in a mortar and pestle. The potatoes were coated with the same rub and roasted. The zucchini was brushed with some basil vinaigrette left over from Friday’s dinner.

Yesterday I was planning to have stir fry. Even bought some ground pork which I decided to use in deep fried Chinese pork balls. Made them about a teaspoon size, very cute and easy to incorporate in the stir fry. Used canned baby corn and bamboo shoots along with fresh bok choy, snow peas, green beans, carrots, celery, mushrooms, ginger, and garlic. Dave mentioned that he’d never really stir fried, so I put him at the stove for this one The sauce was a combination of Chinese black vinegar, kecap manis (sweet soy sauce, tastes a bit like molasses), tamari soy sauce, chile oil, and chicken stock. I think we’re having grilled chicken on salad today.

What's for dinner: Bday dinner results

As is usually the case with a menu, I made tweaks to what I was planning for tonite.

First, I decided that instead of searing the scallops I would cook them sous vide (under vacuum). That meant cooking them in a vacuum bag in water at a temp no higher than 140 degrees. Not long ago Dave bought a portable induction burner, and it did a magnificent job of keeping the water between 138 and 141 degrees. I made this menu change for two reasons: 1) I was searing the steak, and wanted some texture variety; 2) Less attention needed to be paid to the scallops while I finished the rest of dinner. A third reason was that I wanted to try it -- and as soon as Dave reminded me we have the induction burner, it was a slam dunk. Incidentally, they came out perfect -- firm but not chewy, very sweet, and great with the Bearnaise.

I also messed around with the salad a bit. Same ingredients, but I tried juicing some of the tomatoes and making a fresh tomato aspic with the pearl mozz suspended in it. I think I went a little too light on the gelatin, so it didn't really hold its shape. But the flavor was fantastic, very intense tomato with hits of the basil vinaigrette. Like a cold jellied tomato soup.

The ahi noodles looked great, and so did the Baked Alaska:

What's for dinner: Fancy birthday dinner

Not surprisingly, I try to fix dinners with “Dave’s Favorite Things” for special occasions. In truth, I try to do that most of the time anyway. But for the dinner tomorrow night, I get to take things a little over the top. Menu for tomorrow night:

• Ahi Sashimi “Noodles” on a bed of daikon radish strings, wasabi cream, white sturgeon caviar. I will take sashimi-grade ahi tuna (raw) and cut it into very fine julienne to resemble red noodles. I have a Japanese tool that cuts things into skinny twisty strings, and will put the ahi on a bed of that. For the wasabi cream I will bring heavy cream to a simmer and add wasabi (Japanese horseradish) powder; it thickens the cream immediately into a nice sauce. That will go around the ahi pile, which I will then garnish with some osetra caviar that should be arriving by air tomorrow.
• Tomatoes and Pearls, Caprese-style. Organic heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella “perletti” tossed with a fresh basil and shallot dressing, with a chervil herb salad and fresh baguette. For the dressing, I blanch basil and shock it, then blend with extra-virgin olive oil to a loose paste. Blanching it helps keep it green, even when exposed to acid that would normally turn it brown. I’ll grate some shallot into that, and whisk in some white wine vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper. I will chop the tomatoes into approximately ¼” dice, so they are about the same size as the adorable little balls of cheese. The tomatoes and cheese get tossed with the dressing, then “spilled” over onto a bed of chervil (an herb we don’t see much of, the flavor is a blend of anise, celery, and parsley but much more delicate) that I grow in my AeroGarden. Along with that we will have bread from a local bakery whose baker won the World Pastry Cup for his bread, beating out the French. It’s a bit of a drive to pick it up fresh on the afternoon of dinner, but a very special treat.
• Surf and Turf au Béarnaise with Sweet Potato Gaufrettes The surf is jumbo scallops, seared to a deep brown caramel crunch on each side. The turf is a prime NY strip steak, seared on each side then finished in the oven to medium-rare. The steak will be sliced to serve two, and fanned on a plate with a drizzle of Béarnaise sauce over the top. The scallops will be plated two to the plate, on a swirl of the Béarnaise. Since the primary flavor of Béarnaise is tarragon, of course I will garnish with a tarragon ruffle of some soft. Gaufrettes of course are just a fancy name for potato chips, but they are usually cut so the resemble a fine mesh screen. I will do that on a mandoline and then deep fry the sweet potato slices and pile them in a bowl, seasoned with fleur de sel, a special French sea salt gathered by hand from marshes, in this case from the south of France.
• Baked Alaska Brownie Sundaes Dave has always wanted to try having Baked Alaska at home, so I’m going to give this a try, making it up as I go along. I’ve baked two 4” circles of pecan-toffee brownies, and in a 4” round pan lined with plastic wrap I have layered one cup of fudge brownie ice cream and one cup of dulce-de-leche ice cream. I will make a soft meringue topping, then layer the frozen ice cream block between the two brownies and cover it with the meringue. It then goes into a 450 degree convection oven for 5 minutes or until there’s a little brown on the tips of the meringue swirls. (Wish me luck!!)

Ok, back to the kitchen with me. I have a lot of prep to finish today so that Dave doesn’t have to sit down to dinner tomorrow with a sweaty, frantic, exhausted wife. And in truth, today is his birthday so I do need to do something a little special today as well – probably mojitos and a Korean-style flank steak with rice, garlic glazed carrots.

What's for dinner: Macaroni and Cheese

I will never try to tell you that my mac and cheese is good for your heart.  It’s not.  But sometimes you need comfort food, and this can fill the bill.

Cook 1 pound of pasta. Twisty shapes grab the sauce best, I used cavatappi tonight.  It is important to cook the pasta well, almost over-cook it.  Al dente pasta is not a good thing in mac and cheese. 

Sauté 2 T of grated shallot and 1 clove of grated garlic in 4 T butter.  Whisk in 4 T flour and cook over medium heat for about three minutes.  Add 1//8 t cayenne, 1 t dry mustard, and a pinch of nutmeg. Whisk in 2 cups of half-and-half (okay, you can use skim milk here if you want to!) and one cup of chicken stock or broth.  Bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat and stir in by handfuls 2 C sharp cheddar cheese and 1 C jack cheese.  Stir each handful until it is melted before adding the next handful.  Stir sauce into drained pasta.  Serve as is, or pour into a casserole dish and top with sharp cheddar and breadcrumbs, bake at 350 for about 40 minutes or until bubbly.

My next “What’s for dinner” installment will cover a big project: a birthday dinner for my dear husband.  Dinner is on Friday, but prep starts tomorrow.  I’ll tell you the menu tomorrow.

What's for dinner: Chili, part deux

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about getting a beef chuck roast on sale and using a spice rub on it. I braised it, picked off all the fat, and froze the meat and the broth separately for a future batch of chili. The future is today. This morning I started with one very large onion, chopped; four cloves of garlic; chopped; and because it was hanging around, a couple of summer squash, chopped. I sweated all of that in a dutch oven and then added a couple of cups of uncooked pinto beans, a cup of diced green chile (from the freezer), ½ cup of ancho chile paste (also from the freezer), and four parts water to the one part beans. I do not usually soak my beans, I just cook them longer. I also do not add salt at the beginning of the cooking, as I find it makes it hard to get nice creamy beans.

When the beans were nearly cooked (about 2 hrs), I added the 2 C broth left from braising the meat, the chopped meat, and ¼ C of the same spice rub I used on the chuck roast. The spice rub has the usual suspects in chili powder, plus cocoa, cinnamon, and allspice. I also added a generous measure of salt and some harissa paste, about a tablespoon. Harissa is a Moroccan hot chile paste, and I wanted a quick hit of heat and I saw it hanging about in my refrigerator. You can use any other hot sauce or cayenne. Now the pot is on very low heat on a back burner, to simmer slowly until time to eat it. We’ll have it with sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream. A nice quick meal on our way out the door to yet another baseball game.

Yes, yes, I know: no beans in chili, and who ever heard of summer squash in chili. The squash has cooked into nothing recognizable but does add a sweetness to the chili. I also feel better knowing it won’t go bad in the produce drawer.

What's for dinner: Cooking from the pantry

Today, because I was doing canning, I didn’t feel like running to pick up groceries.  I do, however, have a well-stocked pantry so dinner prep wasn’t too bad.  I buy eye of round roast when it is on sale and slice it into ½” slices, freezing them 2 slices per package.  I pulled out one of those, it thaws quickly in a water bath.  I had sour cream on hand, not an everyday occurrence, so I immediately thought I would do a beef Stroganoff.  No fresh mushrooms, but I always have dried shiitakes that I grind to a powder, and dried porcini mushrooms as well.  With an onion, some garlic, a little Dijon mustard, and some commercial beef base (not at all like bouillon cubes) I was set.  But – oh no! – I did not have egg noodles.  Sure I could use pasta, but with a nod to the “Russian” origins of Stroganoff, I decided to cook up some barley.  Three to one ratio of water to barley, well-salted, and tossed in some of the shiitake powder for more earthy flavor and a little olive oil.

The barley cooks for nearly an hour, so I had lots of time to get the rest of the meal ready. Slice the beef into julienne strips, toss with a little salt.  Chop a cup of onion, use the microplane to grate a clove of garlic.  Mix about a tablespoon each of the different mushrooms into a cup of boiling water (love that instant hot water faucet!) and add a teaspoon of the beef base.  Cook the onions in a skillet over high heat until most of the moisture is gone and they just start to brown.  Add beef strips and cook until pink is gone, add garlic.  Stir in 2 T flour and stir to cook the flour for a minute or so, then add the mushroom/beef broth and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard.  Scrape down the skillet and make sure it mixes with no lumps.  Add in some chopped fresh thyme and parsley, simmer for a few minutes to be sure the flour is cooked.  Turn to very low until ready to serve.  When barley is nearly done, add ½ c sour cream to the beef and stir to combine, be sure it doesn’t boil or it will curdle.  Serve over barley.

If I were using fresh mushrooms, I would slice them and cook them with the onions.  This would of course be just fine over egg noodles; the barley gave a wonderful chewy texture and earthy complement to the mushrooms and beef.

We had a nice Washington Hills Gewürztraminer, I think it was a 2006. 

 

Canning syrups today

I have already mentioned (more than once) that I've been experimenting with glace fruits this summer. Today I canned all the syrups left over from the cherries and the melons. I got 2-1/2 pints of cherry-plum syrup, and five pints of honeydew syrup. I can't say that the honeydew syrup tastes just like melon, because it is sort of caramelized. In the jars, it looks kind of like honey. But it does have an enchanting taste. It would be really good on waffles, in fact good with chicken and waffles if anyone is familiar with that semi-peculiar dish. The cherry-plum has already been proven to be great with sautéed minced shallots in butter as a sauce for pork. I'm also thinking of swirling some into homemade ice cream.

I suspect several jars will be Christmas gifts, along with the pickled carrots I did earlier this summer.

Loco Moco

If you’ve been to Hawaii you probably know what loco moco is.  But bear with me while I tell everyone else. 

Loco Moco supposedly originated at a drive-in called Café 100 in Hilo on the island of Hawaii.  In its purest form, it is white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and brown gravy.  In more deluxe renditions, the rice can be fried rice, the meat can be a sausage patty, some sliced linguisa sausage, or even a small steak. 

We fell in love with loco moco many years ago on an early visit to Hawaii.  I make it a lot when we are there (usually every other Christmas) and sometimes at home.  This week we had Chinese takeout and I ordered fried rice just so we could have loco moco this weekend.  It really is not a healthy choice, but once a year, well, it’s okay.  And on many occasions, like today, I leave out the brown gravy so it’s not quite as much of a fat bomb.  Sometimes it’s just really good Japanese fried rice with one sautéed egg on top.

Today’s loco moco was deluxe fried rice, topped with a 3-oz burger patty seasoned with green onions and onion soup mix.  I usually keep a supply of burgers in the freezer, so just used of the 6-oz patties and split it for two.  Then two eggs, sunny side up.  I do insist on making sure all of the whites are cooked, with the yolks still runny.  That takes some careful watching, but with a tsp of water and a lid on for a few minutes, they do turn out the way we like them. The runny yolk makes up for no gravy. 

So that was our brunch today.  I even had a nice glass of Argyle sparkling wine (can’t call it champagne anymore, that’s illegal!).

 

What's for dinner

I thought we’d have rack of lamb today. But it is nicely vacuum packed so will keep until next weekend. I have some homemade goat cheese and herb ravioli in the freezer that should get used, and a couple of basil plants that need pinching back. I am planning to blanch and skin a couple of tomatoes, then use the boiling water to cook the ravioli. I will serve the ravioli at room temp with a sauce of basil/parsley pesto and tomato concasse (peeled and seeded tomatoes cut into very small dice). As I am already going to boil water, before I use it to blanch the tomatoes I will blanch six big peaches so we can slice them for a crostata. I’m planning to get a lot of use out of one pot of boiling water!

Baking bread and other kitchen projects

You know, I never thought I’d be one of those people who prefer to bake their own bread to buying it. But somehow I became one of those people. Today I am making whole wheat sandwich rolls and one loaf. I probably wouldn’t except our leftovers demand bread: I made some really great baby back ribs the other day, spice rubbed and then cooked at 200 degrees for about 12 hours. Didn’t even need sauce, but I made some anyway. The point is, I always make too much, the Costco package of ribs has three full racks. So Dave picked off all the rest of the meat and now he wants a pulled pork sandwich. It’s the least I can do for him. The rolls are baking right now and starting to smell good.

I’m also making cherry-plum syrup today. So many of my projects are a domino effect of other projects, and this one is a classic. I might have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was using up extra cherries by glace-ing them. The by-product of that was about a quart of cherry syrup. I also had way too many black plums, so I threw those in the blender the other day to get a nice puree, to maybe make freezer jam. I had to use that puree by today so decided to cook it together with the cherry syrup. I’m thinking that it will be great with duck or pork, as well as on yeast waffles. I think I’m going to end up with about six cups, so I will probably pour it into jelly jars and process it.

Project #3 today is a beef chuck roast. The other day I rubbed it with a spice rub of red chile, oregano, cinnamon, cocoa, allspice, thyme, garlic power, etc. Now it gets to slow-cook in the bottom oven for 10 hours, and I’ll pick out all of the meat and turn that into chili. I have some ancho chile paste in the freezer, I think left over from making enchilada sauce, and it will help make a nice rich chili. Good thing it’s a long weekend, we might have time to eat some of it; Dave is leaving on business on Tuesday so we’ll be stocking the freezer with chili for his lunches in the future.

I also have to finish baba ganoush with squash and eggplant, but I need to go get more garlic and lemons for that.

Pastel Potatoes

As I’ve mentioned more than once, we get weekly produce bags from a semi-local farm, all organic. For the past few weeks, we’ve gotten potatoes but not really enough to do what I really like, potato salad. Today I decided I had accumulated enough. And I had red potatoes, pink potatoes, and purple potatoes. So here’s what my potatoes for salad looked like, cooked, peeled and cubed (see photo). I thought they were kind of funny so decided to share. White, pink, lavender.

I’m kind of Spartan in my potato salad: just potatoes (waxy type), eggs, sweet onion, celery, white wine vinegar (to soak the hot potatoes), mayo (only Best Foods/Hellman’s will do), a little yellow mustard, salt and pepper. Pickles on the side, only (homemade dill slices and sweet gherkins).

Playing with pizza

We were going to go out for pizza tonite but I really didn't feel like going out. So I made a whole wheat pizza crust for two pizzas. One pizza was sauced with homemade bbq sauce and slow-cooked pork butt with onions and mozz. The second one was spread with goat cheese with mixed herbs and topped with minced fennel, minced sweet onion, minced sun dried tomatoes and drizzled with a little oil from the sun dried tomatoes. It also got a little mozz, can't have too much cheese. They were both really good and I think Dave was happy we stayed in for pizza!

Spiced tomato cream sauce

I had leftover couscous from the Sunday birthday dinner so wanted a chicken stew to go with it. Already had cooked chicken breasts in the freezer, so I made a sauce: 1 14-oz can organic chopped tomatoes 1 T ras al hanout 1/2 t cinnamon 2 t clarified butter 1 T corn syrup 2 T heavy cream Cook the spices in the butter until fragrant. Add tomatoes and use stick blender to take out almost all of the lumps. Add remaining ingredients and simmer, covered, over very low heat for an hour. (I did the slow simmer because I had lots of time; it's probably also fine to cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring.) Add protein, in this case chicken breast in 1/2" cubes. But I'm also going to make this with paneer, an Indian fresh cheese that's easy to make.

Birthday dinner for my Mom

Thought I'd share what I did for dinner for Mom and Jerry yesterday. I have to go down and cook for her once in a while anyway (they live in Tacoma, I'm in downtown Seattle, so it's about 40 miles), got to keep some meat on her bones. And while she is a very good cook, sometimes she'd rather not have to. The menu was grilled game hens, grilled zucchini, seven treasures couscous, pickled cucumbers and onions, foccacia, and an apple and pear crostada. For the game hens, I cut out the backbones to flatten them, and then brined them for a couple of hours. My recipe was a variant of one from Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen. After brining, I made a spice rub that included brown sugar, paprika, chile powder, coriander, pepper, cayenne and some other stuff. Added some oil to that and rubbed it in, let that sit overnight. Skewered the hens and then grilled them, glazing with a homemade bbq sauce in the last ten minutes. It paired nicely with a bottle of merlot. The zucchini were a large globe-type and I just cut them in half and then sliced in ½" slices. Those get salted to take out some of the excess moisture, rinsed and tossed in olive oil. They only need a few minutes on the grill and are good at room temperature, so we did those first, made sure they had nice grill marks, and let them sit while the birdies grilled. I mix the couscous with shallots sautéed in olive oil, minced preserved lemon, chopped dried apricots, raisins, chopped pistachios and almonds, and some saffron. That is also served at room temperature, and I was able to make that in the morning, one less thing to do at dinner time. The foccacia is a variant of my pita bread recipe, I pat it out into a half sheet pan and dust it with fennel salt. Only takes 20 minutes at 400 degrees to cook, and you get a big sheet of 1-1/2" thick bread that is very soft but sturdy. It makes really good panini sandwiches, too. Finally, I made a crostada with organic apples and plumcots. Used the same crust recipe that has cornmeal in it for additional texture. I should mention that nearly all the vegetables I used in the meal were organic and came in a weekly basket we get from a local farm. I do believe in supporting our local farmers!

Bee-yoooo-te-full foccacia from all purpose dough

I've been fiddling with a bread recipe for a while now -- it started out as a recipe for pita bread, but with a few changes it now works for many things. I've made burger buns, blankets for hot dogs, pita bread, and dinner rolls with it. Today I tried a full-size foccacia:

The basic recipe is 3C AP flour, 3C bread flour, 2 C warm water, 5t yeast, 2 t sugar, 1 1/2t salt, 1/3C vegetable oil. I use my KitchenAid mixer. Put 1C flour (either type), yeast, and sugar into mixing bowl, whisk together. Whisk in 1C warm water. Cover and set aside for 30-45 min until foamy. Then dump in all the other ingredients, and turn the mixer (with bread hook) on speed 2 and let it mix for four minutes. Check to be sure that there's no wet flour pushed up on the sides of the bowl (just run a spatula around it). Then run for another four minutes. At this point it should be all mixed, kneaded, and pulling away from the bowl. Gather dough and put into an oiled bowl, turn the dough to coat with oil, and cover with plastic wrap or a lid. Let rise for an hour, then shape into what you want to bake with it. Let the dough rise again for another half hour or so, then bake at 400 degrees. You'll end up with about 1400 grams of dough, which makes 1 dozen pitas, ten burger buns, one full size (13x18") foccacia, or about four small pizza crusts.

Red hands

So first I was doing the cherries, now I've just peeled a bunch of beets. And my hands match my bright pink shirt and shoes! Someday I'll remember to pull out some latex gloves for these things. I think we'll have the beets with yogurt, cucumbers, and dill. I'm also making a tian of summer squash, sweet onion, and tomatoes. Too much good stuff, as one of the commercials says. Sometimes it's hard for me to keep up with all that shows up in our CSA basket each week.

Too Many Cherries?

No, you can never have too many cherries. But I do have too many for us to eat fresh before they spoil. While I was making fruit leather the other day (stone fruits, again too may to eat), I saw directions for making glaceed fruit. So I am trying it today with 1.5 lbs of pitted cherries. I have one of those German cherry pitters with a hopper so I can pit them somewhat faster and with much less hand strain. It's not perfect but it does the job. The cherries are in their initial syrup today (2C water, 2/3C sugar, 1/2C white corn syrup. For three more days they will get more sugar, the point is to replace all the water in the cherries with sugar. And the syrup that's left? MMM, waffles!

New way (for me) with halibut

Had some guests in from the Midwest last week and wanted to do something they might not run into every day. So I picked up a nice big chunk of fresh halibut up at Pike Place Market (no they didn't throw my fish...). I marinated it in a combination of vegetable oil and Goya "Sauzon" with

achiote (seasoning, comes in packets, you can get in most Mexican groceries or some supermarkets). One packet and 2 T oil for each pound of fish. Let it sit and think about itself for 3-4 hours, then wrapped it in banana leaves and put it on the grill.

Side dishes included "calabacitas," a combination of roasted fresh corn, sauteed zucchini and summer squash, and roasted green chiles, and a red and green cabbage slaw with a sweet and sour vinaigrette. And some homemade grilled bread for fun.

It all went surprisingly well with a nice Washington state syrah.

Mmm...Cherry Crostada tonight

Something good for dessert tonight - a cherry crostada (or crostata, depending on where you are). It's a free-form tart with a fresh fruit filling. I use a basic butter pastry recipe, but with 1/4 cup of cornmeal in it. Makes for a great mouthfeel. Last week I made one with nectarines, peaches, and plums.

The plums made it really bright red:

This time it's six cups of pitted, halved sweet cherries. (The season is still going strong here.) My husband was kind enough to process the cherries, so all I have is the sweetening/thickening and the crust to do. I'm using a scant 1/2 cup sugar and 1T of tapioca flour and tossed the cherries in that. They sit and wait while the crust chills for an hour. The tart will take almost an hour to cook. One of the yummy things is brushing the crust with beaten egg then sprinkling coarse sugar (I have raw sugar from Maui) all over it. You get this great crunch in it. I've made this kind of thing before, but got a reinforcement a couple of months ago when I took a "summer fruit" class at Culinary Communion.

The beauty of brining

I'm a big advocate of brining protein. It locks in moisture and adds flavor, so how can you argue with that? I do get questions from a lot of people about how to brine, so I thought I'd get it down in writing. I'll leave it to Harold McGee or Shirley Corriher (or Alton Brown) to describe the way brining works. What to brine: poultry, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp. (For beef and lamb, you usually would just rub the meat with salt a hour before cooking, which is not brining.) Basic brine: I use 1/4 cup of kosher salt and 1/4 cup of sugar for each quart of water. Make sure it's completely dissolved. You need enough brine to cover what you're brining. Put the meat and brine into a non-reactive container that you can put into the refrigerator, or into a zip-top bag you can put into a pan while it is in the refrigerator. When the meat is ready (see timing below) remove the meat form the brine and rinse it thoroughly. Use whatever cooking method you were planning. Variations: - Use brown sugar, honey, or molasses in place of white sugar. Molasses or brown sugar are interesting with pork, honey with duck. - Add flavors to the brine. Start with 2 cups of boiling water and add herbs/spices and the salt and sugar. Try coriander, black pepper, and thyme with chicken, or herbes de Provence with duck or pork. Essentially any seasoning you'd use with an item will be good in the brine. Steep the seasonings for 30 minutes to make an infusion, then add 2 cups of cold water. You can even use black tea in a brine for chicken, especially if you're planning to fry the chicken. How long to brine: - Chicken breasts, pork chops: 45 - 90 minutes, depending on size/thickness - Shrimp and fish fillets: 15-20 minutes, again depending on size - Whole chickens can go overnight, as can a pork loin roast. Turkeys are more like 24-36 hours.

Where has the time gone?

Wow, last post at the end of May. Oh, that's right, my ecstacy over perfectly fried seafood. That jaunt to New England was a good one -- even the Mariners vs. Red Sox game we got into at Fenway was a win for the M's. We had great baked beans at Summer Shack in Boston, and an AMAZING meal at Blue Ginger.

That bears a little more detail -- believe it or not, celeb chef Ming Tsai actually cooks at his restaurant! That dinner was our one splurge on this trip, and we ordered the tasting menu. To our immense joy, Chef came out and served our amuse personally. Camomile-cured salmon. The menu was kind of a "greatest hits" off of the standard menu, but six courses of that was a lot of food. I wasn't wild about the black pepper lobster, but you know I'm not a big fan of black pepper; however, Dave loved it. We both thought the butterfish (aka black cod) was as great as the reviews. To top it off, Chef brought out a signed copy of our menu for the evening and had one of his staff take a photo of him with us. I'm not one for getting my picture taken, but how can you say no when the chef wants it to happen?

Since then? Enjoying the fresh bounty of the Pacific Northwest. We're getting a basket of food from an organic farm every week now that summer's started, and it includes some of my favorite things -- stone fruit. There's nothing -- nothing! -- like a perfectly ripe apricot. Except maybe a perfectly ripe peach :-). And have you ever eaten a sauteed radish? You're missing something interesting if you haven't.

Lobster quest and learning to fry

We're out on the East Coast for a little tour of New England. Of course, that means finding interesting things to eat. We started in Maine, so that meant lobster. Lobster stew, lobster bisque, lobster pie, lobster in phyllo, steamed lobster...and then steamed clams, fried clams, clam chowder, fried haddock. fried scallops...and that was Maine. New Hampshire was just one night, and that was meat loaf at a diner on Main Street in a small town. In Burlington, Vermont, we hung out downtown on the opening night of a jazz festival, and found some good and inexpensive steaks. Best thing so far? A simple lobster stew, at The Lobster Dock in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. I asked the owner how it was made, and he said, "Simply." Just a good lobster stock, made with mirepoix and shells, combined with half-and-half, and lobster sauteed in butter until just done and added to the broth. My mouth waters at the memory of it. The most striking thing so far has been the excellent quality of fried seafood we have eaten. I'm talking about the coatings -- light, crispy, and not oily. I had the most amazing fried scallops at Shaw's in the Pemaquod area, the best scallops I've ever eaten anywhere. Over and over I asked the kitchen what they use, and every time part of the answer was "clam fry." What in the heck is clam fry? I scoured grocery stores and found fish fry, clam batter, and various other names for a mixture that includes corn flour and seasonings. So I've picked up six different kinds and will experiment with them when we get home. (Just what we need, another 10 pounds of fish coating to carry along with the grade B maple syrup and blueberry soda I've also picked up.)

Restaurant reviews

Our condo complex here has a quarterly newsletter, and I've been contributing short restaurant reviews to it for a while now. I realized the other day that there are a fair number of readers from the Seattle area out there, so they might be more relevant than I originally thought. So I'm going to post some of them up here gradually. And if you read this and you're not from Seattle, maybe you'll visit sometime...or at least maybe I can make you hungry.

Foodie porn

(That headline may get some unsuspecting Googlers, don't you think?) I really do use this blog to capture things that we need to remember, about things I cook and how stuff works, and I don't want to forget this comical moment yesterday: The last time I got a foie gras, I processed part of it into a torchon and put it in the freezer, so we could pull it out and shave thin slices on to hot toast. Last night we got the last of it out to have with some very nice Champagne. Over the course of time, the shaving of the torchon had shaped one end into a rounded point, and the torchon itself was the diameter of a large carrot. It looked, well...phallic. We looked at it lying there on the cutting board, and I told Dave, "That is foodie porn." I thought he was going to fall down, he laughed so hard.

Preserving sweet onions

Okay, first, yes I know I've been distracted to other things lately. I'll try to get you caught up on the past six weeks gradually. But what is on my mind right now is sweet onions. I adore them, but storage is always a challenge. We got a bag at Costco a couple of weeks ago, and today it was "use 'em or lose 'em." So I cut a few of them Lyonnaise style (top to bottom. for crescents) and am cooking them very slowly to get a batch of caramelized onions, which I will freeze and pull out for burgers etc. The rest of them are diced and bagged for the freezer. They'll keep just fine for a while, and though I won't use them fresh they will be great when I want a sweeter mirepoix or am making Indian food. The last bit of them I am using in a casserole today using my homemade chorizo (Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you that I made chorizo for Cinco de Mayo, and also ginger/sage breakfast sausage, because I got pork shoulder for 88 cents a pound!) and some Mexican rice with zucchini and lots of chopped sweet onion. I might even mince up a fresh jalapeno, a couple are ripe in my Aerogarden.