Archive for the ‘self pleasuring’ Category

Soba in Dashi, Meet Asian Beef Saute

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

I was torn between two dishes for dinner. I wanted soba noodle soup but I had all these wonderful CSA veggies to use. So I decided to try introducing two recipes to one another. Turns out they should definitely be friends! I have some of the greens-beef mixture left over today which I’m going to have over rice for lunch. I didn’t, however, take a picture of any of this…it smelled so good I just devoured it!

When I make it again, I’ll try to remember to take one and add it here.

Recipe: Beef saute with soba in dashi

Ingredients

  • 4 chopped spring onions

  • 2 T minced ginger
  • 3 small chilis, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 c. bok choy (or other asian green)
  • 3/4 c. minced cilantro
  • 1 T fish sauce
  • 2 T soy sauce
  • 1/4 c. water (if needed)
  • 8 oz. thinly sliced rib eye (or other fave cut)
  • Dashi
  • Soba
  • Green onions

Instructions

  1. Before you start anything else, get your water going for soba noodles and your dashi simmering.

  2. Saute spring onions, ginger, chilis, garlic, soy sauce and fish sauce until onions start to soften. Add bok choy and cilantro. Add water if soy or fish sauce is getting too sticky in the pan. When everything is desired consistency, add beef and cook until just under your preferred doneness (you will be putting hot broth on this so it will cook a little more).
  3. Remove greens and meat from pan, leaving liquid to reduce.
  4. Put soba noodles in a bowl, add a heaping pile of beef-green concoction, spoon some of the reduction on top to add even more flavor, top with chopped green onions and pour dashi over all that.

Quick Notes

Try not to drool in the bowl–especially if you’re serving others.

Number of servings (yield): 3

Meal type: dinner

Microformatting by hRecipe.

A Strange Turnip Experiment

Friday, April 8th, 2011

As my son pointed out, “Sometimes experiments fail.” Well, luckily, I think this one worked!
Turnip "gratin"

I had quite a few turnips from my CSA. The only way I’ve ever had turnips is roasted in big chunks and I didn’t like them like that. But I do like thin, crispy starchy things with butter sooooo….

I peeled and sliced the turnips into quarter moons if the turnips were huge or half moons if they were smaller. I put some olive oil in my cast iron pan and then started layering them around. After one layer I put some dots of butter and some thinly sliced shallots. Then I layered some more turnips and then topped that with rosemary, butter, and pepper.

I cooked it, covered, on the stovetop on medium heat until the bottom started to brown. Then I put it, uncovered, in a 400° oven for, well, too long for most people, but good for us…until the bottom was almost black. I thought it was great! Hubby was lukewarm on the dish but I really liked it.
2008 Robert Denogent St. Véran les Pommards
I served it with Herb-Roasted Chicken and a salad. I’d just picked up both my veggie CSA box and my CSA chickens so what else were we going to have for dinnner?!?

Along with it I had a beautiful 2008 Robert Denogent St. Véran les Pommards white wine. Everything came together beautifully.

Asian Beef with Stuff

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

Asian Beef with sauteed greens, shiitake and rice
One night I opened the fridge to find a wilted (but not rotten) 1/2 bunch of cilantro, some ginger and not much else. I had a rib-eye in the freezer. I always have garlic, shallots, onions in the drawer and chiles from my dad’s garden in the freezer. I threw what I had in the food processor and made this dish that turned out FREAKING amazing. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down what I did.

That’s why I have this site, if I didn’t post my recipes, I could never reproduce anything I cook! So, I tried to remember what I did. And I elaborated on it with the extra items in my fridge (greens and mushrooms). It, once again, was so delish. And I took notes. Having totally improvised this though, I left it open to interpretation with the recipe title.

Recipe: Asian Beef with Stuff

Ingredients

    Marinade/Sauce:

  • 2T soy sauce
  • 2T fish sauce
  • 3T canola oil
  • Handful of cilantro (stems and all)
  • 2t peppercorns
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1T brown sugar
  • 2 inches ginger (peeled and roughly chopped)
  • 2-3 small chiles


  • ~1lb of your favorite cut of beef (I usually use rib eye)


  • Big pile of saute greens
  • 1 c. chopped shiitakes
  • 2 shallots thinly sliced

Instructions

  • Put all the marinade ingredients in a food processor or blender. Zap until it’s a soupy paste. Pour that over your steak(s). Let that sit for as long as you have. In the fridge if you have a long time. If I have an hour or less, I let it sit on the counter, covered.

  • Once you’re ready to cook, shake some of the marinade off the steak(s) and cook them on the stovetop until it’s the desired doneness. I like mine still mooing. Remove the steak and let it rest on a cutting board.

  • Add shiitakes and greens to the pan with a little water, if needed, to loosen the crusty steak-bits. Cook for a couple of minutes then pour in the remaining marinade. Toss once in a while until mushrooms and greens are cooked.

  • Remove mushrooms and greens from the pan, squeezing them with tongs or slotted spoon to remove as much of the liquid/sauce as you can. Set aside.
    Sliced beef in marinade/sauce
  • Add sliced shallots to pan and reduce the remaining sauce.

  • When it’s the sauce syrupy and, well, saucy, thinly slice your steak and toss it back into the sauce.

  • To serve, put a mound of rice, a scoop of greens/mushrooms and top with the beef.

Quick Notes

I can’t decide if the shiitakes worked or not. Try it both ways and let me know!

Number of servings (yield): 2

Meal type: dinner

Microformatting by hRecipe.

I Don’t French

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Freshly washed Black TrumpetsI 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 Steep hillit 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 ;-)
Black trumpets hiding in the leaves
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:
Potato Leek Soup with Black Trumpets

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

  1. Melt butter in a pot.
  2. Add chopped leeks. Cook until they start to soften and barely brown on the edges (just barely).
  3. Pour in wine and add garlic. Let the wine reduce almost away.
  4. Add chicken stock and potatoes. Simmer until potatoes are cooked.
  5. 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!
  6. Salt and pepper to taste. Top with sauteed mushrooms.

Cooking time (duration): 30

Number of servings (yield): 3

Meal type: dinner

Microformatting by hRecipe.

Simple Baked Lemon-Herb Chicken

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

This recipe (if you can call it that, it’s so simple!) was spawned from having too little time and energy to make anything else one night and ended up being a favorite dish in the end!

- 1 chicken, cut into 6-8 pieces…I never cook the wings, I save them w/ the back for making soup and stock
- 1 lemon
- A small handful of herbs…sometimes sage, sometimes thyme

Preheat oven to 400°. Put chicken in a baking dish. Pour lemon juice over each piece. Sprinkle herbs over chicken. When I use sage I leave the leaves whole, with thyme I use whole sprigs but crumble some of the leaves off as well. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, grind some pepper on top. Bake until done!

Chicken

Seriously. That’s it. I’ve had multiple people rave about this from my 6 year old son to my 70 year old dad. It’s a hit!

Chicken Raviolis – Make leftovers not taste like leftovers

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Fill gyoza wrappers for quick raviolis

Take the leftover chicken meat, I had 2 legs and 1 breast left, and cut it into chunks. Put it in the food processor with some sauteed garlic and shallots, some chopped herbs, salt and pepper. For the amount of chicken I had left I used 2 shallots and 2 cloves of garlic, a tablespoon or so of chopped marjoram and a tablespoon of chopped thyme. Blend that all together until it’s an incorporated minced up ravioli filling.
Fold the raviolis
This was a quick weeknight meal for me so I didn’t make my pasta dough, I just used gyoza wrappers. They’re quick easy ravioli wrappers and they’re perfectly square so they’re quick to fill and fold! You only have to boil them for about 2-3 minutes on low boil so they don’t break open.
Chicken ravioli on kale
For my husband and I, I sauteed up some kale in coconut oil (a tip I got from a friend, it’s yummy!), sprinkled it with some chili flakes and served the raviolis on top of that with some butter and cheese (on his). For my son i just put butter and cheese on them. Easy for the whole family!

Best Rack of Lamb in the World!!

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

I sent a request out to the twitterverse to help me plan dinner. I just needed a protein. I was having chef’s-block. My dear friend Olga Nunes (soon to be featured in the celebrities section of this site) threw “Lamb” back at me. I had never cooked lamb. I didn’t really even know if I liked lamb! But I took the challenge.

Rack of lamb and Cornas

Since I was flying blind on this one, I went to Epicurious and found a recipe that didn’t only look good but was over the top with flavor and a bit eccentric: Spice-Coated Rack of Lamb with Arugula, Avocado, and Blood Orange Salad. WOW!

There used to be a restaurant at the summit of Highway 17, the main artery between Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley. The restaurant changes hands about once a year. No one wants to stop at the summit, they’re almost home! Anyway, one of the restaurants had a huge sign that said, “BEST RACK OF LAMB IN THE WORLD!” It made me laugh. I never stopped, it’s gone now. I’ll never know, but if it was this recipe, it may have just well have been the best in the world. This dish was AMAZING. Apparently I do like lamb.

Poured an amazing 2003 Cornas with it. It was perfect.

Salt Block Cooking – Bacon and Eggs

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

This doesn’t need much description. Just bask in the salty glow:

Just laid the bacon on the hot salt

Just laid the bacon on the hot salt

Flipped the bacon

Flipped the bacon

Now it's the eggs turn

Now it's the eggs' turn

Brinner!

Salt-Cooked Brinner!

Artichokes and Pork Chops

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

ArtichokeI let my 6 year old son pick dinner the other night. He picked steamed artichokes and grilled pork chops. I love that kid.

This is the first time I’d cooked artichokes since my interview with Jason Webley, and let me tell you, I can’t look at them the same way ever again! I felt like maybe I shouldn’t be having these with my kid!

All I do to make artichokes is to cut the top of the pointiest parts and all but about 1/2″ of the stem off with a bread knife (I find it easier to use the large serrated knife so the knife doesn’t slip). Then I snip all the thorn-tips off with my kitchen shears. Rinse them off and put them in a pressure cooker with a little water. Once it reaches full pressure I cook them about 15 minutes for large globes.
Grilled Pork Chops
The pork chops were easier than ever since he picked the already marinated ones from the butcher. It was a simple marinade of olive oil, garlic and herbs. But then all I had to do was put them on a hot grill! Easy for mom! They were fatty and completely saturated in oil which made my grill flame up like crazy so they got a bit charred but the flavor was great.

Throw in a little garlic bread and you have a quick, easy and fun-to-eat meal. Who doesn’t like to eat their way through to the heart of a thistle?

Salt Block Cooking – Japanese Steak Frites

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Heating up the salt block

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)
Side salad - Daikon and pea shoots with soy-sesame vinaigrette
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.
First batch of rib-eye slices
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.
2 minutes of cooking (if that)
To serve, squeeze a little lemon juice on the meat and eat!