Whatever shall I make this week!?!? So many yummy choices! Can’t wait to get cookin’:
Sprouts ‘salad’ mix – sunflower, pea, buckwheat, broccoli and radish
Fuji apples
Artichokes
Red beets
Cabbage
Carrots
Rainbow chard
Collard “rapini”
Green garlic
Red Russian kale
Leeks
French breakfast radishes
Rutabagas
Strawberries
I needed to cook as much produce as I could for dinner. I’m picking up my first CSA box today and it’s going to fill my fridge. I had a huge bag of spring onions from my dad’s garden and a head of napa cabbage that were taking up the most space. Pasta time!!
2 cups chopped spring onions
1/2 head of napa cabbage
2 garlic cloves
1 c. white wine
1 package of prosciutto cut into 1″ slices
1 lb shell pasta
1/2 c. toasted pine nuts
I chopped the spring onions into 1/2 inch chunks (just the tender white parts…i cut down a little too far into the green and got some tough pieces). Put those in a large pan with some olive oil and salt. Cook for what seems like forever. When they look soft, add the wine and cook that until the wine is almost gone. Add the garlic and cabbage. It will be a huge pile, but will quickly reduce. Once the cabbage is soft, fold in the prosciutto.
Toss the cabbage-onion mixture into the cooked pasta. Top with the toasted pine nuts.
This turned out to be far tastier than I imagined. It was just a clear-out-the-fridge meal for me but the result was really, really good. We had a 2004 Ridge Syrah with it that was great!
1 medium eggplant
1 c. walnuts
1/4 c toasted pecans
2 cloves garlic
2 t. minced ginger
2 t. chili oil (or 2 t. olive oil + a dash of something spicy)
salt & pepper
Bake the eggplant at 450° for 45 minutes.
In the food processor, zap together the nuts, garlic and ginger. Once the eggplant is baked and soft, scrape the insides out of the skin and put the goop into the food processor with the nut mixture. Blend those together well. Add the chili oil (or olive oil), salt and pepper to taste. Pulse that into the mixture.
Done!!
Easy, really tasty. Perfect spread on some crostini alongside a salad.
This is an easy, quick, yummy meal for those days that are just screaming for barbecue. This recipe is for 2 people.
2 trout fillets, each about 1/2 lb
4T Green Peppercorns
Olive oil
Salt
Crust the peppercorns with a mortar and pestle if you have one or zap them a few times in the food processor. You want to have them coarse and still have a few that are whole. These aren’t hot, they’re just flavorful.
Sprinkle the fillets with salt and then rub with olive oil. Press the peppercorns into the top of the fillets, the olive oil should help it stick.
Put the trout, skin side down, peppercorn side up, on the grill for, oh…a while…maybe 7-10 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish and the heat of the grill. I don’t flip the fillets over. As long as the skin is still on the trout I’ve found I can leave them skin-side down long enough for them to cook through nicely.
Meanwhile I thinly sliced fennel bulbs (some use a mandonline for this, I just like my handy-dandy chef’s knife), peeled and sliced in half some tangerines, tossed this with lemon juice, a high-quality olive oil (I prefer Stonehouse House Blend), and some sea salt.
I also melted some butter and garlic together and brushed it on some francese which I put on the grill next to the fish for a couple of minutes. I could eat a whole loaf of garlic bread by myself. It’s a huge weakness of mine!
This is a quick, easy meal that has very little cleanup afterwards!
I found this restaurant purely by accident, chance, kismet, whatever you want to call it. I call it scrumptious fate! We were in the area and it was lunchtime. I don’t know anything around the north bay so I just searched on my phone for, I kid you not, “lunch”. This was the first result that came up. We were just on the other side of the freeway so I maneuvered through the construction zones and, with a bit of difficulty, found Hana hidden in the parking lot for the Double Tree hotel.
For lunch I had the Sushi and Sashimi combo lunch. Three types of nigiri, three types of sashimi, all wonderful (tako, maguro, hamachi, sake, and 2 others!). I was surprised to see that they had my favorite sake by the glass as well, Kanchiku. Smooth and delicious.
I returned the next day for dinner with my husband. We couldn’t go home without him experiencing this place. I got the Chef’s Sushi Omakase. My only stipulation was no Uni. Can’t do it. Don’t like it. Don’t want it anywhere near me.
I got a gorgeous plate of 10 nigiri: Tai (snapper), aji (jack mackerel), hamachi, sake, sawara (spanish mackerel), mirugai (giant clam), aorika (cuttlefish), toro, house-smoked salmon and anago (fresh water eel). Both the sawara and the aji were amazing. I hate saba so I didn’t realize other mackerels could be so lovely. The clam and cuttlefish were not my cup of tea. There wasn’t anything wrong with them, they were far less chewy than I thought they’d be. They weren’t gross by any means, just not my thing. I guiltily ate the toro. I think the bluefin ban should go into effect sooner than later. All the other fish were amazing and not moving towards extinction from overfishing. That’s my one qualm with Hana, they should take bluefin off their menu.
I hope I find myself hungry in the north bay again. This was a wonderful lunch and a wonderful dinner. Tucked away, totally unexpected.
The flowers are in bloom! Everything at the farmer’s market is so bright and vibrant now.
The tulips showed up a couple of weeks ago…
The asparagus is the first sign of the good things to come. They let me know that stone fruit is just around the corner. Soon Frog Hollow peaches and pluots will appear and I will be an even happier locavore!
I had some cod I picked up from the Farmer’s Market. It’s not rock cod, it’s a local Monterey Bay cod that is small and thin. The name has escaped me. But it’s a light, white fillet. This recipe serves 2.
3/4 lb white fish fillet
2T butter
2 garlic cloves, finely minced, mushed with 1/2 t. salt
1 lemon (juice and zest)
2 slices prosciutto
10 spears asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces
Melt butter in small saucepan. Add garlic/salt mixture and cook until golden. Turn off heat and add juice and zest from lemon. Set aside briefly.
Blanch asparagus for about 2-3 minutes. I didn’t and had to remove and cook the asparagus a little more before serving.
Tear off 2 pieces of parchment or foil large enough to wrap fish. Pour a little olive oil in the bottom of the foil/parchment. Place fish fillets in parchment or foil. Top with melted butter concoction. Cover with a slice of prosciutto. Top with asparagus.
Bake in 450° oven for 12-15 minutes, until fish is flaky and cooked through.
To plate I removed the fish from the foil and poured a little of the juicy-butter-yumminess over the top.
These are a great party snack. They’re easy to make and wonderful. They have a slight crack-like character in that you really can’t stop eating them! The good thing is they are relatively healthy!
1 c whole almonds
1 c pecans
1 c walnuts
Toast on cookie sheets for 5 min. at 375. Lower oven temp to 325.
Let cool completely! If not, the next step is disasterous and you get scrambled-egg-nuts.
Beat one egg white until it is frothy (not into a meringue state, just foamy). Toss the nuts with the egg.
Mix together:
3/4 c. sugar
zest of 1 large orange
1 t. salt
1 t. cumin
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 t. cayenne
Add the egg-coated nuts and toss until coated with the sugar mixture.
Put back on cookie sheets, single layer so they toast evenly. Bake 20-25 minutes. Keep a close eye on these, they can burn easily.
