Search this site:
Loading
|
|
Archive for the ‘dinner’ Category
Tuesday, February 19th, 2013
For once I pretty much followed the recipe. This one was from Food & Wine magazine’s recipe of the day newsletter: Crispy Tofu with Noodles. We ate ramen three times over the long weekend. I was a bit porked out. I had veggie tacos for lunch and wanted more vegetarian fare for dinner so it was good timing for this recipe!
I also happened to have a couple of packages of fresh udon in the fridge. I’m not a big fan of udon soup, I like skinnier noodles in broth. This was a great way to use up those noodles.
I used shiitakes and king trumpets for the mushrooms. I followed the recipe for the whole dish but at the end I tossed in pea shoots off the heat so they just wilted from the heat of the dish. I also drizzled chili oil and a little soy sauce on right before serving.
This was a great dish. My 8 year old gobbled up the tofu, I’ll make that for him as a snack. It felt healthy without being bland.
Posted in asian, dinner, flavor, food, mushrooms, photos, recipe, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Monday, February 4th, 2013
So the SuperBowl recipes are finally over with in the newsletters. Today’s Epicurious recipe of the day was Skillet Chicken Pot Pie with Butternut Squash. Right off the bat I know that I won’t be putting butternut squash in it since my son wouldn’t eat it if I did. Oddly, it’s all he would eat when he was a baby for at least 2 months but now he won’t go near it. I headed to the store.
I couldn’t find pearl onions. I’ve never seen frozen pearl onions…I thought that ingredient was odd. So I used 1/2 a white onion, chopped. I followed the rest of the recipe up to the squash and skipped that bit. I substituted 1/2 a cup of white wine for chicken stock so it ended up being 1/2 cup white wine and 2 1/2 cups chicken stock.
The other missing thing? Puff pastry dough. One, I think I’d rather use pie crust than puff pastry anyway but I couldn’t find that and ended up with filo dough. It’s sort of like eating paper but it tastes good :)
I had everything ready to go on the stove top and then discovered that my oven wasn’t working. Luckily with the kitchen remodel we put in a second oven so I was saved. It has a rapid-pre-heat so I only lost 5 minutes. I wasn’t sure if the filo would survive the time the recipe called for but I just turned it down to 375 a few minutes early.
If, I mean when, I make this again I want to make a biscuit top crust. I think that would make it even more comfort-foody.
Posted in chicken, dinner, flavor, food, recipe, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
1 1/2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cubed.
3 large shallots (equivalent to the amount a medium onion would give you)
2 cloves garlic
6 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup pancetta
4 slices bacon
Lemon juice (one lemon)
Finely mince or food-processor the shallots and garlic. Saute in butter with the pancetta until starting to brown on the edges. Deglaze with a few tablespoons of white wine. Add potatoes and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and simmer until potatoes are soft.
Puree. Thin with chicken stock if needed. Whisk in lemon juice.
Top with creme fraiche and/or bacon.
  
Even though, aside from the bacon on top, there’s no cream or much fat in this dish, it’s really really rich. I think as a whole big bowl, it may be a bit much but would be good as an appetizer in a shot glass for a nice dinner.
Posted in amateur, dinner, food, potato, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring, soup | No Comments »
Thursday, January 31st, 2013
My newest adventure is actually grabbing a recipe from one of the bazillion newsletters I get each day and cooking something from it for dinner that night. One night in and I’m already improvising of course. I never follow recipes! The first recipe was from the Epicurious newsletter: Rigatoni with Spicy Calabrese-Style Pork Ragù
The first thing I changed about this recipe is the simmer-for-4-hours bit. I didn’t have 4 hours. The second thing was I only had a pound of sausage and no ground pork. I did say “inspiration” right? Oh, and no carrots. I food-processed the onion, celery, garlic and chili flakes. Meanwhile I browned the sausage until it was almost cooked through. I took out the sausage and put the pureed veggies into the pan and cooked all the liquid off of those until the edges started getting toasty.
Then I added the sausage back in, tossed it with the puree and added 2 cans of tomatoes that I pureed in the food processor and one can diced. I like some chunks in my sauce sometimes. I put that on low and let it simmer until it was thick.
I didn’t have any rigatoni…seriously, I didn’t go to the store for this one! I ran with what I had! I had farfalle so I cooked that until it was 1 minute from done then I put the pasta in the pan with the sauce and let it cook the last minute in the sauce.
I learned that trick from Molto Mario years ago! It’s the only way to have pasta. It integrates all the flavors and keeps the pasta from becoming a clump under the sauce.
In the end it only took about 45 minutes for the whole process. I’m sure it would have been far richer and wonderful with 4 hours of simmering and more pork. I’ll try that sometime. This was a lot like a typical go-to pasta dish I make a lot without a recipe but the trick I liked was food-processoring the veg. It integrated the flavors into the meat and tomatoes much more quickly I think.
I thought I’d do a second day of newsletter recipes tonight but all the newsletters were Superbowl themed and I was not interested in quesadillas or chili so the next adventure will have to wait until next week when “ball” season is done.
Posted in amateur, dinner, flavor, food, italian, pasta, pork, recipe, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Saturday, January 26th, 2013
Last year’s epic Cayman Cookout adventure was supposed to be a once in a lifetime, blowout, crazy-idea event. That quickly changed after the 2012 event to trying to figure out how we could do this every year. Not only is the food fantastic, we have a blast as a family doing all sorts of wonderful warm-water activities: snorkeling, swimming, petting stingrays! But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We arrived on Wednesday and after 17 hours of travel (it is *not* easy to get here from the west coast!!) we just rolled into the hotel, checked in, showered and headed to a sushi dinner at Taikun. Just like last year, the wahoo sashimi was the hands down winner.
That’s really Day 0. Day 1 was Thursday. We didn’t attend the wine auction dinner that was the kickoff of the Cookout but we did eat out at Blue. There were two tasting menus to choose from, the Blue menu and Eric Ripert’s. Given how much of a fangirl I am, you can guess what I picked. My husband and I had Eric’s menu and added his signature Tuna and Foie Gras dish. Our eight year old son had oysters, raw wahoo and slow-roasted pork belly. I raised him right.
The dinner was flawless. It just added to the awe I already had for Eric. We started with the amuse bouche which was a seared yellowfin with basil oil and ginger. The first course was Yellowtail with wasabi jam and shiso with a crunchy rice. The crunch was a wonderful addition and I couldn’t find anything wrong with the dish. It was paired with a 2010 Vouvrey Sec Champelou that I am pretty sure we have in our cellar. Beautiful combination.
Next up was the King Crab Salad with avocado and green apple. The first time we had the crab-apple combo was at the French Laundry in 2003. I promptly went home and made a dish with that combination. It works so well. This was sour and really well balanced with the sweet, sour and creamy. It doesn’t come close to growing together but it sure does go together.
The Langoustine with truffle, hon shimeji (mushrooms) and aged balsamic was really creamy so paired with a beautiful white burgundy. The halibut (poached wtih black trffle and pot au feu), which I never ever order because no one can cook halibut right aside from Eric Ripert, was perfect. If I blind tasted it I would never have said it was halibut. It was moist and, even though it was covered in truffle, was not over-truffled. I am not a fan of truffle oil in dishes because that is all you taste but that wasn’t the case with these shaved truffles.
The evening involved a lot of wine so things start getting fuzzy. The dover sole with almond pistashio brown butter was fantastic. The bread crusted striped bass with parsnip puree was crispy and awesome with a really strong rum hibiscus (the hibiscus was the strong flavor!). The desert was a praline with gianduja mousse with torta caprese and praline sorbet. The 2009 Chateau Roumieu sauternes was full of pear and stonefruit with a hint of caramel.
  
I was absolutely obliterated with flavor and perfection. I couldn’t find a flaw in the meal just adding to my fangirl awe.
Read about Friday and Saturday!
Posted in ahi, celebrities, decadence, dinner, eric ripert, food, Le Bernardin, restaurant, tasting menu | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, January 15th, 2013
La Posta is one of my favorite places to eat in Santa Cruz so naturally I picked it for my birthday dinner. I’ve already written it up in the past but I got a new camera and wanted to test it out! And it never hurts to update people on the status of a restaurant. This one has only improved with time!
I got the quail and matsutake special appetizer. I can’t pass up matsies!! It was a lovely, delicious dish with crisp radishes and shaved turnips. I have to be honest, I still prefer matsutakes prepared with mirin and shoyu baked in parchment. Nothing wrong with this preparation though!
My main was Berkshire pork spezzetino. I had no idea what spezzetino was but it’s cubed pork stewed with everything you can imagine: soffritto, tomato, clove, wine, herbs, you name it! Served with polenta verde, it was so harmonized and rich and heavenly. I mopped up every last drop.
I added a salad last minute because the pork was so rich, I needed something to balance it out. Simple green salad, so fresh, so perfectly dressed.
As usual, my son got the Salumi plate, olives and pasta with butter and cheese. My husband got the lasagnette with sausage and candy caps. There wasn’t a bite left at the end of the night aside from the bit of prosciutto and olives my son couldn’t quite finish that we took home and he had in his lunch the next day. How many 8 year olds take prosciutto and olives in their lunch?!?!
Dessert disappeared too quickly for a picture. I got a vanilla cake with candied mandarin slices and creme fraiche. My son got pear sorbetto and vanilla gelato. My husband had chocolate almond cake with cinnamon cream and caramelized figs.
I was surprised to find out that no one at La Posta knew they’d been featured in Food and Wine Magazine! They were all wondering when they came in!
Posted in dinner, flavor, food, la posta, santa cruz, table dance | No Comments »
Thursday, January 10th, 2013
We had a bit of a hectic schedule. It was the first day back to school for my son after the winter break. I was back to work at his school as well after not working for 3 ½ months since my husband’s motorcycle accident and I stayed home as a 24-7 nurse. I raced home from the day at school, prepped the chicken, tossed it in the marinade then put it in the fridge so we could head out to my son’s drum lessons.
We ran back into the house at 5:30 and I got started. I was planning on barbecuing but it was cold out and I didn’t want to spend time outside! So I grabbed my cast iron skillet and turned on the oven.
Chicken:
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
2 cups white wine
1 red onion, sliced
1 T whole grain mustard
1 lemon, sliced
Couscous:
2 cups israeli couscous
2 cups chicken stock
parsley
½ cup pine nuts
Put all the ingredients into a ziploc and marinate for at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 400?.
Remove from marinade (reserve it for later in the recipe), salt, and sear skin side down in a hot (preferably cast iron) pan until skin is brown and crispy. Turn the chicken over. Top with the red onions from the marinade. Put in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
Meanwhile, put 2 cups of israeli couscous in a pot with 2 cups chicken stock and ½ a cup of the marinade liquid. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 10 minutes until tender. Stir in toasted pine nuts and chopped parsley.
The timing should work out perfectly if you let your chicken rest for about 5 minutes. Serve the chicken atop the couscous and enjoy!!
Posted in amateur, chicken, dinner, food, recipe, self pleasuring, wine | No Comments »
Friday, January 4th, 2013
We had Christmas at about 5 different houses this year. Bouncing from family to friends and back again. We wanted to have Christmas day at our own house though. So since we’d already made the rounds, we extended and invite out to any friends who didn’t have a place to go on Christmas…Christmas Orphans. We had a couple of people take us up on the offer and I decided, since it was a small group, to make something a tad fancy: Rack of lamb.
I made the recipe that I love but can’t take credit for, I didn’t make up the amazing combination of cocoa, cumin and coffee that’s in the dry rub. I honestly would never have put those together. But it is so good and is the only way I make lamb now.
Alongside the lamb I served a simple salad of fennel, satsumas and pomegranates in a pomegranate-lemon-shallot dressing.
The lamb turned out perfectly. I had gone to Whole Foods assuming I’d be picking up lamb imported from New Zealand since it’s winter. Turns out there’s a northern California rancher raising lamb year-round now so I got locally raised, grass-fed lamb. I was pleasantly surprised.
I hadn’t planned dessert but my eight year old jumped in and scooped up some Mission Hill Creamery Salted Caramel ice cream and topped it with some chocolate-covered pralines we made for gift bags. Not bad for no planning huh?!
The day after Christmas we went to our friends’ place for their annual Boxing Day party, had a lovely time, and came home with a bag of porcini from their “back yard.” Most were dryers, one was a griller. Perfect, firm, white, awesome.
We mostly struck out on our Thanksgiving foraging trip so this was a treat.
I’m finally coming up for air after the crazy holiday season. Just when I get back to the real world we’ll be leaving for the Cayman Cookout again this year. Our once-in-a-lifetime crazy trip is happening again. I can’t wait. I’ll be reporting live as much as I can!
Posted in amateur, christmas, dinner, flavor, food, hardcore, holiday, mushrooms, porcinis, santa cruz, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Friday, December 14th, 2012
1 lb Sablefish fillets
1 egg + water (make an eggwash)
1 cup crushed pecans (I zapped them in the food processor)
sprinkle of cayenne
1 lb kohlrabi with greens
3 cloves garlic, sliced
juice of one lemon
2T butter
This dish has three elements: Kohlrabi puree (think mashed potatoes), kohlrabi greens and the nut-crusted fish. Multi-tasking is important on this one!
Part 1:
Peel and dice kohlrabi and boil in salted water until softened. Puree with 2T butter and salt to taste.
Part 2:
Roughly chop greens and saute with 3 cloves garlic. When cooked to perfection, add lemon juice off the heat.
Part 3:
Sprinkle fish with cayenne and salt.
Dip one side, the cayenne-salt side, of the fish in egg wash. Press that side of the fish into the pecan pieces until they cover the fillet. Place in hot pan with olive oil on medium-high heat until pecans form a nice crust. Flip it over before the nuts burn, reduce heat to medium and cook the fish the rest of the way through.
To serve, put a blob of kohlrabi puree, a pile of kohlrabi greens and the fillets of fish on top. Sprinkle with an interesting finishing salt.
Posted in amateur, dinner, food, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Thursday, December 13th, 2012
Way back in June I took a class from Pim (aka Chez Pim) and immediately after the class started remodeling my kitchen and so I couldn’t make the amazing dishes I’d just learned about. Fast forward to the completion of the kitchen and then my husband got in a motorcycle accident. I couldn’t dive into this project while I needed to nurse him. We were planning on having the inaugural dinner party dish for the unveiling of the new kitchen be ramen because it uses every part of the kitchen from roasting the bones to braising the pork to simmering the stock to making the noodles. I had to wait.
We finally just got to the point that hubby can walk a bit, carefully, and since we watched Tampopo with our son on Thanksgiving, we finally broke down and decided to have a ramen weekend. Now, when you make ramen from scratch, it’s not a quick meal. Sure, the final assembly can be done in minutes, but the prep takes two days.
I can’t share the recipe here, it’s not mine to give, but I can give you a summary of the process. First, earlier in the week, I had to get 5lbs of pork bones and a huge slab of pork belly. That was a special trip to the store! Then on Friday I drove over to San Jose in search of Kansui. I had never been in the Lion grocery store before. It’s a Chinese grocery the size of a typical Safeway or the like. But most things aren’t in English. Shelves and shelves and shelves of chili pastes, all in Chinese, all somehow different?? I accidentally bought a chili concoction with peanuts…missed that detail. I also bought an excellent jar of chili pickled daikon. Random impulse buy. I stood in Aisle 15 for 10 minutes with a picture of a bottle of Kansui on my phone and slowly scanning the shelves. BINGO! FINALLY! Drove back over the hill with the last ingredient I needed for this adventure.
Saturday I got started on the broth. In my huge stock pot I put in the pork and chicken bones, all the other necessary bits and pieces and started it simmering. For 8-12 hours. Then I started the bone-roasting for the Shoyu Tare which has to simmer for 2-3 hours. And then braised the pork which has to simmer for 3-4 hours. Then hubby and son made the noodles that have to sit in the fridge overnight.
This is a serious project people. You’re committing an entire weekend to pork parts and alkaline.
Was it worth it? Hell yes! I strained my broth and got it all ready to ladle up. I had strained out the tare and put it in the fridge the day before so I got that heated up. I got the pork belly out of the fridge, ready to slice.
Friends came over and I rolled and rolled and rolled and cut ramen noodles. 10 portions piled up and ready to go. I set out all my bowls, got my water boiling, RAMEN WAS HAPPENING!
We put on Tampopo. And we ate. And we ate. I finished the first bowl, topped with green onions, spring bamboo shoots, kamaboko and pork. I was full. Everyone headed home stuffed to the gills. Then we dished up second bowls for hubby, son and I and ate at TV trays in the living room while we watched more of Tampopo! It was the first time I’d ever watched that movie and not been starving within five minutes. That is the only way to go. The chef was happy to see these bowls returned to the kitchen emptied of all the noodley-brothy-goodness.
I wish we could eat this every week but I don’t have 2 days to dedicate to one meal every week. This will happen again though. Even if it does completely destroy my kitchen. It was worth every pork-fat-covered pot, every dirty bowl and every broken ceramic spoon. Seriously, I should buy those by the case. I break one every time we use them!
Posted in amateur, dinner, flavor, food, photos, pork | 1 Comment »
|
|
|
