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Archive for the ‘leeks’ Category
Saturday, June 30th, 2012
Everyone’s reaction to me telling them I’m remodeling my kitchen is first, “FINALLY!” and second, “Where are you cooking? When we remodeled our kitchen it was a lot of microwaving.”
No way! Not for me!
Pasta and broccolini boiled on my camp stove…garlic sauteed and pine nuts browned on the other burner. Topped with fresh CSA basil and a dash of chili flakes I made with last year’s crop:
 Pasta with broccolini, pine nuts, garlic, basil and chili flakes Locally caught sand dabs cooked in foil on the grill with CSA garlic, garden parsley and marjoram and olive oil. Served with grilled CSA leeks and grilled CSA lettuce (romaine-like but not actually romaine) topped with caesar dressing:
 Sanddabs with garlic, parsley, marjoram, grilled leeks and grilled lettuce with caesar dressing I think I’ve used my microwave twice and that was for warming up leftovers for lunch. No kitchen does not mean no Food Porn!!
Posted in amateur, dinner, flavor, leeks, oitg, organic, pasta, photos, santa cruz, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
I made this soup a couple of month ago for a Soup Night gathering at my house. I had vegetarian friends coming so I simmered veggies in water all morning to make really flavorful stock for the soup. I had some dried cranberry beans from the farmers market in the pantry just screaming to be used. I had also seen a cranberry bean soup recipe in Eric Ripert’s A Return to Cooking that ultimately inspired this one.
Today I’m taking soup to friends who just had a baby last week and they’re vegan. I thought this would be good to take them since it’s packed with protein and it’s freezable. But when I came onto the site to find my recipe, I hadn’t ever posted it! Hopefully I got all the ingredients right and this will be just as tasty as last time.
—–
Soak 3 cups dried cranberry beans for at least 4 hours.
Sweat until soft:
1 onion, diced
1 fennel bulb, diced
2 medium leeks, chopped
Add:
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Cook on medium-low with the lid on for about 15 minutes (don’t let it brown, just soften)
Add 3 cups cranberry beans and 6 cups stock. I have used homemade veggie stock both times I’ve made this since it’s been for vegetarian or vegan friends but chicken stock would work just as well.
Bring it to a simmer and let it simmer for at least 2 hours or until the beans are soft.
Puree it all up into a lovely, creamy (without cream) soup.
Finish with a dollop of parsley-lemon puree and a drizzle of lemon oil and some crusty french bread.
Posted in amateur, flavor, food, leeks, organic, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
 I don’t cook with an insane amount of cream. I hate cheese. I don’t eat offal. And I wash my mushrooms in WATER…*gasp*! I don’t understand why there is such a problem with mating water with mushrooms. They grow in the RAIN for pete’s sake!!
I went for a little walk yesterday. It’s been raining here for bloody forever it seems. We finally got sunshine on Monday! It’s been gorgeous all week. Yesterday I had time to hike up to my black trumpet patch. I don’t know who designed this mushroom garden but next time, can you not put  it on such a steep hill? The picture really doesn’t have the right perspective. One wrong step and I’m sliding down an awfully long way. I precariously perch myself on the hillside, trying to plant my feet against trees or logs or rocks, some of which slip away since the ground is so saturated and muddy! What I’ll do for these yummy fungi.
I had a wonderful asparagus soup with a couple of little black trumpets as a garnish at Soif over the weekend. I decided to run with that idea and made a potato leek soup to use as my black trumpet medium. The difference here was that I had a big pile of them so there was a huge trumpet in every bite! I love being a hunter-gatherer ;-)
But even with all that washing under running water, there was grit. I tried to fool my mouth by putting a really crunchy salt on as a finisher, but I still knew there was sand and not just salt! I guess getting sand in my soup isn’t that French either.
I’m reading Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat right now and could completely relate to Grant’s story of traveling and eating in France and Italy. It took me back to L’Arpege and it was a great meal but I was so uncomfortable I had a panic attack. I would love to have amazing food in a subway station…in a park…in a living room. Anywhere that’s not so stuffy, proper and snooty. I loved Italy for that.
Someone recently told me I don’t even need to post recipes, she likes just reading my blabbing-on posts. But I just grabbed this little plug-in that I want to try out:
Recipe: Potato Leek Soup
Ingredients
- 1/2 stick butter
- 2 large potatoes
- 3 leeks (white and light green parts only)
- 1 cup white wine
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 4 cups chicken stock
- salt and pepper to taste
- Mound of black trumpets for “garnish” (optional)
Instructions
- Melt butter in a pot.
- Add chopped leeks. Cook until they start to soften and barely brown on the edges (just barely).
- Pour in wine and add garlic. Let the wine reduce almost away.
- Add chicken stock and potatoes. Simmer until potatoes are cooked.
- Pour into a food processor/blender and puree until smooth. If you want to be fancy, strain through a chinois or cheesecloth. I tend not to be fancy!
- Salt and pepper to taste. Top with sauteed mushrooms.
Cooking time (duration): 30
Number of servings (yield): 3
Meal type: dinner
Microformatting by hRecipe.
Posted in black trumpets, dinner, leeks, mushrooms, photos, potato, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 7th, 2010
Some friends came over for dinner last night and I decided I would go all out and make a multi-course extravaganza. We’ve been touting the excellence of Mark Bitterman’s new book, Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes , to anyone who will listen so I made sure to highlight salts in the meal.
 To get people started, just a little plate of nibblies: prosciutto, olives, Mt. Tam triple cream brie from Cowgirl Creamery and some walnut levain.
Then we got serious. My ever popular and damn good Ahi Tartare that I have made countless times at this point. It never fails to impress those who have never had it though. I think I finally figured out the right balance of shallots, herbs, lemon, salt. I’m happy with this nearly every time now. I used Shinkai Deep Sea Salt in the tartare and topped this with Turkish Black Pyramid salt.
Thanks to the huge number of pomegranates I got from my dad, I came up with this salad: Butter lettuce with shaved fennel and apples (from our tree) and pomegranate seeds. I made a dressing with just minced shallot, salt, champagne vinaigrette and olive oil. I let the shallots soak in the vinegar and salt for at least an hour or maybe two so they were soft and the flavor permeated through. I topped the salad with a sprinkle of Murray River Salt. Simple and delicious.
I got a huge squash from my CSA this week so into the oven it went for squash soup based on this recipe. The only difference was the squash type and I used leeks in addition to onion. The squash, according to my CSA newsletter was a Orange “sunshine” Kabocha. It was a “thicker” squash when pureed into the soup. I think it has a bit less water in it that a butternut which produced a thick, creamy soup. I fried up some king trumpet mushrooms in butter and topped the soup with those for a roasty, nutty addition. This one I topped with some Big Sur Fleur de Sel that we picked up somewhere locally. Any semi-coarse sea salt would work well, I just wanted something that wouldn’t just dissolve in the soup but give a little crunch every few bites.
Nevermind the main protein course. I had an epic fail with my meat thermometer and over cooked the beef. It was still edible, but very much well done and not how I like my cow. So disappointing. But we had already had so much food it really wasn’t a complete disaster.
Instead we moved on to the dessert which is the spawn of too many apples on our tree and me not liking to really bake. Simple apple crisp with, guess what, POMEGRANATE! I made the syrup last week and have it in a squeeze bottle in the fridge for just such occasions. To make the crisp, just slice apples up, put them in a baking pan and top them with a mixture of:
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Bake at 350° for 1 hour. Serve warm (I baked it ahead and put it back in the oven for 15 minutes before serving it). Top with some pomegranate seeds, a generous drizzle of pomegranate syrup and your favorite vanilla ice cream.
It was a stellar evening, much good wine was also consumed of course. Champagne with the tartare and salad. Burgundy with the soup. Solera with the apple crisp. A happy night was had by all.
Posted in ahi, ahi tartare, amateur, apples, butternut squash, dinner, food, leeks, mushrooms, photos, proscuitto, recipe, seasonal menu, self pleasuring, tuna tartare | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Exhausted from vacation…aren’t they tiring? I had a chicken, I had leeks from my CSA, I have sage in the garden. That’s a meal right there!
1 whole chicken
3 leeks, chopped
1/4 cup butter (sliced into pats)
10-12 sage leaves (4 leaves chopped, leave the rest whole)
1-2 T chopped fresh thyme
Salt, pepper, olive oil
Place chopped leeks in the bottom of a 9×12 baking dish. Drop 6 pats of butter somewhat evenly around leeks. Place 6-8 sage leaves around on top of the leeks.
Put the chopped thyme and sage under the skin of the chicken breasts along with 2 pats of butter per breast. Salt the chicken inside and out, generously. Drizzle with olive oil. Place the whole chicken, breast side up, on top of the leeks.
Put in a 375° oven until internal temperature of the chicken (inserted into the thigh, not touching a bone) is 165°
Some of the leeks should get crunchy-crispy, some just soft and buttery.
Alongside the chicken I served bruschetta with a fava bean puree.
1 1/2 lbs fava beans (in-shell weight)
1 clove garlic
2T pecans
salt, pepper, olive oil
Good, hearty bread
Shuck those beans. Shuck? That’s what you do to beans right? Not just corn? Anyway, take the beans out of their pods. Blanch them for 2 minutes and then plunge them into ice water. Once they’re cool enough to handle, squeeze the favas out of their skins (if there is a split in the skin, they’ll pop right out). Add the beans, garlic, salt and nuts to a food processor. Puree. Add olive oil while it’s running until it’s the texture of pesto.
Spread on toasted, hearty, yummy bread. Grind a little pepper on top.
Tags: fava beans
Posted in amateur, chicken, dinner, leeks, recipe, recipes, sage, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Before:
2 leeks, chopped
2 green garlics, white and pale green parts, chopped
3 small carrots, diced
Saute all that in some butter until everything is soft.
Add 1 cup white wine and cook most of it off.
4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 c. chicken stock
Add to pot, bring almost to a boil. Simmer, covered, until potatoes are soft.
Meanwhile, slice and grill some king trumpets…the closest thing you can get to porcinis off-season. Just brush them with olive oil and grill until they become fungus-bacon.
Puree the soup, add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.
Ladle up, top with the mushrooms and a few parsley leaves.
After:
Tags: soup
Posted in amateur, dinner, leeks, mushrooms, potato, recipe, recipes, seasonal menu, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
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
Tags: CSA, local farm
Posted in amateur, apples, dinner, farmers market, food, fruit, gardening, leeks, organic, photos | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
 A mishmash of things from the fridge and the garden turned out to be a really wonderful dinner.
1-2oz. pancetta, diced small (optional if you’re vegetarian, required if you’re not!!)
1 leek, white and pale green parts only, chopped
Sautée these in a pan with olive oil until they are caramelized.
(Make the pesto while you’re waiting, recipe below. And put on a pot of water for the pasta!)
Add about 1/4 cup sweet vermouth to deglaze, and let this reduced down until syrupy.
Add:
1 cup diced summer squash (I used round zucchini)
2 minced garlic cloves
When squash is softened, add:
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
Immediately turn off heat!
This gives the sweet, richness of the caramelization but the freshness of summer tomatoes. If you turn off the heat it doesn’t break down the tomatoes but there’s enough heat left to warm them up with the dish.
Parsley-pecan pesto:
1 bunch parsley, stems removed
3/4 cup pecans
1/4 c lemon juice (I like lemony pesto!)
2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
Run all this in the food processor and add olive oil (while the food processors still running) until it’s the texture of pesto! I probably use just shy of 1/4 cup of oil.
Toss the pesto into your cooked pasta (I used linguine) and top with spoonfuls of the tomato leek mixture.
This turned out even better than I expected it to. I served it with a Ridge Wines 2005 Syrah/Grenache and it went beautifully.
Posted in leeks, recipe, tomatoes | 2 Comments »
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