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Archive for the ‘potato’ Category
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
There is a recipe in The French Laundry Cookbook for “Clam Chowder” which, of course, is nothing like clam chowder because it’s Thomas Keller’s twist on a classic dish. It’s cod cakes with cod and clams. It’s a fantastic dish, I’ve made it before, actually following the recipe. It takes hours. It is not a dish for a weeknight after work.
I used it as an inspiration for these cod cakes though. This made 3 servings.
- 1 1/2 lb cod
- 4 potatoes
- 1 large shallot
- 1/2 bulb fennel
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 stalk celery
- 2 c. white wine
- herbs
- peppercorns
- 1/4 stick butter
- Peel, dice and boil potatoes…preferably yukon golds, I used whatever I’d gotten from my CSA. Drain and mash up in a bowl with 1/4 stick of butter.
- Dice and saute in olive oil: shallot, fennel, 1 clove garlic, celery. When soft, add to potatoes.
- Trim true cod down so you have small, pretty, rectangular filets. Set those aside.
- Cut the trimmings down to 1-2 inch pieces and put in a sauce pan with some herb sprigs (I used marjoram), 6 peppercorns, a clove of smashed garlic and a cup or 2 of white wine. Simmer until fish is cooked. Remove fish from pan and smoosh it up in the bowl w/ the sauteed veggies and potatoes.
- Add salt and pepper and put the mixture in the refrigerator for a bit so you can handle it.
- Once the mixture is cool, heat up olive oil in a pan and form patties out of the potato-cod mixture.
- Place them in the heated olive oil and then walk away…don’t touch them until they are truly browned or they will fall apart and become potato-cod hash.
- When brown, flip and leave them alone again.
- Remove from pan and place on paper towels to absorb extra oil.
- While the cod cakes are browning, cook your cod fillets up in olive oil with just salt as seasoning. Cod is beautiful on its own, you don’t need anything else.
- I served them on top of a kohlrabi puree (like mashed potatoes only better). Or you can serve atop salad with a nice lemony vinaigrette (caesar salad is good, so is a butter lettuce salad with lemon-shallot dressing) – salad, then cod cakes, then cod filet on top.
Preparation time: 45 minute(s)
Posted in amateur, dinner, food, French Laundry, potato, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
 Prepping potatoes for the campfire There’s no reason not to eat well when you’re camping. I packed my CSA and garden veggies, chicken and eggs up and hauled them to Lassen National Park for a weekend camping trip. Before we left I cut the chicken into pieces and put it in a ziploc with wine wine and herbs so it was all ready to go.
 Grilling chicken and potatoes I always pack my knives with me wherever I go so it’s quick and easy to prepare everything. The potatoes go into foil with onions, garlic, butter, salt and pepper.
 Campfire dinner: Chicken, potatoes and homegrown tomatoes The tomatoes don’t need anything but salt! When they’re straight from the garden, they need no additional flavoring.
 Searing albacore When we go to my dad’s cabin, we cook many nights over the campfire but we also have a propane-fueled kitchen so I can get even fancier with my dishes. We had seared albacore with an orange-reduction sauce.
 Steaming clams in white wine and garlic Alongside the albacore were clams that I steamed with white wine, garlic, butter and parsley.
 Grilling the one porcini we found Every year we go to to the cabin we find ONE porcini. Just one. Every year. It’s wonderful and frustrating at the same time. It gives us the hope we’ll find more and we never do. Unfortunately there are cows that are left to roam wild and they eat the mushrooms! I bet that beef tastes fantastic.
 Gorgeous grilled porcini We sliced and grilled the porcini over the campfire, just like we do every Thanksgiving trek. It’s the only way to eat porcini as far as I’m concerned.
Next time you head into the woods, don’t pack trail mix and hot dogs. There’s no need. If you prep beforehand, you can have just as wonderful a meal as you would at home….plus, everything tastes better in the mountains. I have no scientific evidence for this but it is true. Try it!
Tags: albacore, camping, clams
Posted in amateur, chicken, dinner, flavor, food, hardcore, mushrooms, porcinis, potato, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
I host a soup night, ideally once a month, but really it happens when we have a free weekend night. I make a huge pot of soup, customized each time for the number of people coming and the allergies/preferences/aversions of the guests. It’s really, really fun and it gives us a way to actually get together with our friends regularly even when life is hectic. It’s a different group of people each time…and if there is every a time that everyone on the invite list can show up, I’m not sure what we’ll do, our house isn’t nearly big enough!
This time I live-tweeted the making of the soup, just for fun. A sort of step-by-step recipe without instructions! This is enough soup for 16-18 people.
3 onions:
 Onions 4-5 quarts chicken stock simmering on the back burner:
 Chicken Stock Simmering 3-4 carrots (mulitcolored, they looked cool!):
 Added Carrots 1 fennel bulb and 4 stalks celery:
 Fennel and Celery Cooking all that stuff down, entertaining myself with the camera:
 Waiting for veggies to cook down 4 yellow potatoes:
 Potatoes will go in next 3/4 bottle white wine and 6 cloves garlic:
 Added white wine and garlic One bunch kale, somewhat “julienned”…I’d say finely shredded:
 Shredded Kale 6 small zucchini:
 Zucchini Snap peas, halved:
 Lastly, snap peas In there with the zucchini went 3 cans of cannellini beans and then the soup was ladeled over spaghetti that I broke in half before boiling (so it would be possible to eat it with a spoon!)
To serve it was first pasta, then soup, pesto on top of that (basil-walnut-lots of lemon), and for everyone but me, shredded parmesean.
 Topped with pesto for serving Yum.
Tags: soup
Posted in amateur, dinner, flavor, food, organic, pesto, photos, potato, recipe, recipes, santa cruz, seasonal menu, zucchini | No Comments »
Monday, June 13th, 2011
Shred 2 lbs of potatoes, I used the shredder in my food processor, and one sweet onion. I just picked up some walla walla onions that went well. I also used a combination of white, purple and red potatoes to make these look funky :)
Place the potato-onion mixture in a strainer, salt the mix and let it sit over the sink for a while to draw out some of the water. I let mine sit for, maybe, 30 minutes? Longer is probably better.
Squeeze the mixture in some paper towels and get as much moisture out as you can.
Take a bit of the mixture and make a small patty, place some smoked salmon on top of the patty, then place more of the potato mixture on top of the salmon to seal it inside.
Drop this filled potato pancake gently into a small amount of oil and fry it up until it’s brown and crispy…flip it and brown the other side.
Do this on medium heat so they potatoes don’t brown too quickly or they’ll still be raw on the inside!
I realized right as these were finishing that I needed a sauce for them. I’d just picked up plain yogurt so I just minced a garlic clove, mixed that into some yogurt, added a little cayenne and salt and it was perfect! So simple.
Posted in dinner, photos, potato, recipe, recipes, Salmon, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
I was very excited for my first Outstanding in the Field dinner. I tried to get tickets last year and it sold out too quickly, I missed out. This year I booked 3 events to make up for it! I wish I could do more but our calendar is not cooperating with that idea.
So, we arrive at the event, get dropped off by a shuttle and walk through the farm and up a hill to a beautiful view of the bay and the farm. They’re wandering around with appetizers that they are preparing in front of us as well and pouring Soquel Vineyards Sauvingon Blanc…a beautiful wine after a warm walk.
The crab appetizer was my favorite: Dungeness crab with Companion Bakers sourdough crackers (it had asparagus..and other yumminess!). My husband raved about the Marinated beets with Almond ash.
 We chatted with some of the other diners. Planted ourselves near the prep table so as to nab appetizers when they came out…sneaky we are ;-)
After a few announcements and introductions, we split into groups and headed out on a tour of the farm. Apples, grapes, veggies, pigs, chickens, they’ve got it all. The chickens control pests and provide fertilizer for the soil as well as eggs and meat for the CSA. They have a house full of cute little chicks and rotate the areas the full-sized chickens graze in. The pigs get moved around as well and right now the priority is shade. Poor HUGE Daisy is pregnant and looking for all the shade she can find! We continued around the farm getting the lowdown on the crop rotation, the benefits of the animals, the variety of vegetables and fruit being grown and a preview of things we were about to get on our plates.
Then we headed to the apple orchard that had been converted into a fine dining experience. The tables looked amazing. The view was breathtaking.
The other tour groups straggled in, we picked our seats and began to visit, eat, drink, question, chat, advise. We happened to end up sitting at the table with the farmers which was, of course, lovely. We learned a lot and just had fun with them in general.
The first dishes to come out was grilled green garlic with artichokes and wilted fava leaves, charred shallots, and smoky fava beans. All really wonderful. I especially enjoyed the wilted fava leaves since this is something you normally don’t get unless you grow favas.
 
Next out was squid with black butter (not squid ink, brown butter pushed past brown…but not bitter or burnt flavored. I don’t know how they did that), peas, asparagus, marinated green strawberries and wood sorrel. I always push the peas aside in dishes. I like peas by themselves and raw but usually don’t like them in dishes. I ate every last one of these.
The winner of the night thought was the smoked chicken. I get chicken from my CSA every two weeks and cook one the night I pick it up. I know how much better fresh chicken is. Then add to that the chef skills of these wonderful OTF folks and it is so…chickeny! I think people have forgotten what chicken is supposed to taste like…it’s this.
Then it got dark…no more pictures. And it got late. And we had our son at the neighbors on a school night. And we still had dessert. Luckily the dessert were scrump-diddly-umptious ice creams cones from Penny Ice Creamery and we could grab one and bolt to the shuttle to get our car and head home. We got one of each flavor: rose petal and strawberry pink peppercorn. I thought the rose petal was great…until I tried the strawberry! It was even better! They really make *the* best ice cream. We were stuffed and had no problem finishing both of these!
I can’t wait for our next Outstanding in the Field event in June!
Posted in chicken, dinner, farmers market, food, gardening, organic, potato, santa cruz, seasonal menu, table dance, tasting menu | 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 »
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
First things first…this was totally cool and fun!! We actually started discussing putting some sort of exhaust fan over our dining room table so we could do this at the table rather than in the kitchen. Next time we’ll do it outside instead so everyone can participate and cook their own food on the block. This time was an experiment (a successful one!) and I manned the salt block “grill” in the kitchen.
I slowly heated the salt according to the instructions from The Meadow. While it was heating, I prepared the rest of the meal.
I made baked fries…another thing I’ve never made before, oddly. Super easy. Peeled and cut russet potatoes into fry sizes (I like skinnier, crispier fries so I cut them pretty skinny). Toss with olive oil and bake for about 20 minutes at 400°, flip them over and bake 25 more minutes or so until they are as crispy as desired.
I tossed the fries with Flor de Sal de Manzanilla and Nanami Togaroshi. The kicker for the fries though was the aioli. Since this was a Japanese-style dinner, I basically was making Japanese steak-frites, I made wasabi aioli (and it was good!):
1T wasabi paste
2 large cloves garlic
1″ peeled ginger
–Put in food processor and mince all the up together.
2T rice vinegar
2 super-fresh, organic, you can trust to eat them raw, egg yolks
Salt to taste
–Now turn on the food processor and add canola oil until it’s the right consistency…Probably about a cup of oil, I didn’t measure.
(Make ahead of time and refrigerate)
I knew this would be a rich meal so I made a crunchy, refreshing salad:
3 c. Julienned daikon
2 oz pea shoots
3 T soy sauce
2 t sugar
2 t mirin
1 tablespoon water
1 t toasted sesame oil
Dress the salad right before serving so it remains crunchy.
Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for. Thinly slice ribeye (or whatever cut of meat you want to use). I just sliced a steak as thinly as I could. When the salt is hot, put it on there! Cook for about a minute per side…if that. The first batch I think I left on too long. By the last batch I was getting the hang of it. The fattier the meat, the better. If the meat is too lean, it will draw too much liquid out of the meat and make it too salty. The ribeye was borderline…we are saltaholics so it wasn’t a problem for us! I really wanted to cook Wagyu for it’s fat content but nowhere around here sells it.
To serve, squeeze a little lemon juice on the meat and eat!
Posted in amateur, beef, decadence, dinner, flavor, potato, recipe, salt, 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, November 4th, 2009
 Way back in June, FoodPorn.com turned 10 years old and I held a recipe contest to celebrate. It took me way too long to cook the recipes but I now have a winner (unanimous among the family too I might add!):
ADRI!! You can choose anything you’d like from the FoodPorn store.
This was so good! Simple, fresh, lovely and tasty. The only thing I had a problem with was remembering to marinade in advance but I finally got it going early and I’m glad I did. YUM! And paired with it was the only potato salad I’ve ever liked (although it’s not a specific recipe she sent, I used her ideas and it was great). I substituted basil for dill in the salad though. I could do that since it wasn’t part of the official entry ;-)
Winning Recipe:
This is a super easy, summery chicken recipe that looks /great/ on the plate and is very flavorful. I like to serve it with a vinegar-y cucumber-potato salad (chunked cukes, chunked potatoes pan fried or broiled until crispy on the outsides, slivers of red onion, tossed with vinegar and dill).
Herbed Chicken Skewers
Ingredients
1/2 c low-fat plain yoghurt
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp ginger, grated
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 jalapeno, finely chopped (omit and replace with chipotle powder to taste and 2 tsp lime zest, if desired)
large handful freshly chopped cilantro leaves
small handful freshly chopped mint leaves
juice of 2 limes
salt to taste
2 pounds boneless/skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
Method
Blend first 10 ingredients together in mixer or blender until smooth
Toss chicken with spice/herb mixture & marinate in fridge 4-6 hours as time permits
When ready to cook, thread chicken onto skewers and grill 8-10 minutes, turning twice, until lightly browned. (I use an indoor grill/broiler for this, but it would be fabulous on a wood-burning grill; just be mindful not to go too hot or the herbs will burn)
Honorable Mention:
This one unfortunately gets no prize but pride in being mentioned (yes, be proud). And it earns this prestige because I didn’t think I was going to like it at all! There were no ingredients that I hate in it but it didn’t sound exciting to me. I was pleasantly surprised when each bite was a mouthful of rich, fresh, flavors. I did use fresh ingredients as she suggested except the lima beans which I could only find frozen. I served it over israeli couscous.
This goes to OneSockShort for:
Tomatican
In the summer, I’ve made this with all fresh vegetables, instead of frozen and canned, which is even better. But this is a nice winter treat if you live here in the frozen north. I’ve added okra before, which I love, but I know few others do. I think it would also be good with small white beans instead of limas, but haven’t tried that yet. The thing that makes it is the cumin, so if that’s not a flavor you like, pass on this.
2 c chopped onion
1/2 t cayenne
2 T oil
2 t ground cumin
2 c frozen lima beans
3 c canned diced tomatoes
2 c frozen cut corn
1/4 c fresh chopped cilantro
Saute onions and cayenne in oil 5 min or till onions soften.
Add cumin and lima beans and saute 2 min.
Add tomatoes, corn, and cilantro and simmer covered 10-15 min or till vegetable are tender.
Serve over pasta, rice, polenta, or other grain.
*********
Thanks to everyone who entered!!
Posted in chicken, cumin, potato, recipe contest, yoghurt | 2 Comments »
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Surprisingly, this large, layered tower remained upright long enough to take a picture and carry it to the table before it slowly got leany and eventually toppled. It’s a recipe loosely based on one from On the Line, Inside the World of Le Bernadin. I felt that I wouldn’t like certain aspects of the recipe (I’m sure I’d love it if Eric Ripert prepared it for me!). I, however, didn’t want to mix mayonnaise into my fresh, local crab.
So what the tower consists of is:
- One layer fresh crabmeat
- One layer sliced avocado
- A drizzle of jalapeno emulsion
- One thinly pressed, chilled, cut out piece of mashed potato ( mixed with lime juice, jalapeno emulsion, olive oil, salt, and pepper)
- One more layer fresh crabmeat
- One more layer sliced avocado
- Another drizzle of jalapeno emulsion
- Atop all that I took some of the mashed potato and put it into a frying pan with some olive oil. I thought I would get some sort of potato chip like thing but that’s not exactly what happened. The potatoes dissolved into the oil but I just left them there until they were brown and got a very thin chip-like topping.
At the very top was an onion relish that was pretty close to what was in the book:
2 tablespoons red onion
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
–let that sit in the fridge for two hours
I drained off the vinegar and added:
A teaspoon or two jalapeno emulsion
A minced shallot
The juice of two limes
A drizzle olive oil
Salt and pepper
Voila! A crab potato tower!!
Posted in amateur, avocado, crab, potato, recipe | 1 Comment »
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