Something Is Fishy

It seems to me almost every dinner in the winter is kale and potatoes.  I never get tired of it.  It comforts me in a profound way and I feel okay about it because of the piles of kale I'm consuming.  It makes posting meals boring though.  Oh well!

Dinner tonight: braised kale and mashed potatoes!
I treated us with glazed salmon and crispy caramelized onions to go with our kale and potatoes.  I love salmon with only salt and pepper, but I was craving intense flavor and this glaze is amazing.
 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or brown sugar)
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon finely grated ginger (we were out of ginger because Nick had just made an incredible ginger beet syrup so I just used a tablespoon of that)

Melt the syrup, honey and butter in a small saute pan over medium-high heat. Remove from the heat and whisk in the mustard, soy sauce, olive oil and ginger. Let cool.

Heat the oven to 400 F

Drizzle and brush your salmon with the glaze (you could probably even marinate  the fish if you wanted to).  Roast until the salmon is cooked through and flakes easily with a fork, 8 to 10 minutes.

 

Enjoy!

Teleme

I love Teleme cheese.  I love it.  Soft, creamy, slightly tangy.  It's unpretentious and approachable it's really a cheese for everyone (only if the price tag reflected as much).  I treat myself with it.

I couldn't decide what to do for dinner, and the sky was gray, and I was under the weather and I wanted a treat.  Grilled cheese!  Grilled cheese!  I couldn't resist.

Gussied up Grilled Cheese

Preheat oven to 400
Start with your favorite crusty bread, I used a ciabatta style.  Make a spread of chopped garlic, a few table spoons of olive oil, a spoon of honey, a spoon of good mustard.  Dress the bread.

I dry sauteed onions and added some spinach at the last minuet, just to wilt.  Pile on to the bread.

Quickly saute asparagus (first of the season!) until they are tender and bright green, but still crunchy.
Slice Teleme cheese and add it to your bread, asparagus goes on top of that, then into the over for 20 minuets or until cheese is gooey and bread is toasted.

Yum!
If you have a salad too you wont feel so guilty.

Commitment

It's been two months sense we've posted anything here.  I'm so embarrassed.  I have so many excuses... Shop Party kept us busy, and it was a great success!

Shop Party.  Photo by Zohn Mandel

Photo by Zohn Mandel

Holiday festivities made us dizzy, what with all the fancy cocktail parties, Cioppino feeds, our open house, NYE candlelit dinner, and our annual New Years Day brunch.  Unfortunately this out of focus picture is the only thing to show of it.

This year I went against tradition and made some new year resolutions, one of which is to take more pictures.

Then we made hundreds of cookies a dozen cakes for a dreamy Descry event in San Francisco. 

We Dream in the Daytime Too event at Photobooth.  Photo By Photobooth

Devoured dreamy cakes and cookies.  Photo by Photobooth

All of a sudden I came to- and it was February!

Nick and I celebrated Valentines day early and went to Sea View for the weekend.  I prepared a dream lovers menu for us.

Day 1

Mimosa

New Mexican Pinon coffee

Real Belgian Waffles with maple syrup, strawberries, and pancetta

Oeufs en Cocotte

Cheese plate

Roasted fennel & pancetta salad

(this is where the camera battery died)

Roasted balsamic cinnamon pears with vanilla ice cream

Day 2

Broiled grapefruit

Coffee
Toast

Valentines Day has me thinking about commitment... I'm prepared to re-commit myself to this blog.  I'm prepared to share what I'm eating and cooking with greater success.  I hope we haven't lost you for good.  

LOVE

b&r

Taco Tuesday

We love tacos. I was excited to receive some fresh fish from my dad and prepare a taco spread for Nick's homecoming.

Nick likes his fish breaded and fried for a fish taco, I prefer grilled fish. I compromised by lightly seasoning and flouring this fish and flash frying it.

Now a good fish taco needs not much more than fresh fish, maybe some cabbage and lime, but I made a whole mess of food for snacking and lunch the following day. Black beans, Spanish rice, fresh salsas!

It has been so damn cold in the mornings and evenings it wouldn't be a leap to suggest I was trying to remind us of warmer days, or perhaps a trip to Mexico!

Summer Lovin'

Summer is winding down.  The heat in no indication, but the plants can tell.  The trees are turning.  The summer fruit is attracting flies, because no matter how we try we can't seem to eat it all.  The Naked Ladies are even starting to drop their petals. 

 

I'm a summer babe through and through, yet I am ready for the change.  I'm looking forward to (indoor) fires, and root vegetables.  I'm not rushing though.  I'm going to enjoy summer until the very last drop.  We are canning and making ice cream and making giant figs our main course for dinner.

  

Slice a ripe fig in half, stuff with soft cheese, such as fresh goat cheese, wrap with bacon, fry... EAT!  This is improved upon fig is a favorite summer snack, but we made some polenta and a salad and it became dinner. Voila!

Summer Soup

In the same way we push our heavy coats to the back of the closet, come May I like to retire my huge soup pot, and use it exclusively for large batches of berry and stone fruit jam.  The warm days mean less stove and oven time, more fresh veggie time.  Yet it is now June and we still have an extra blanket on the bed, our wool jackets at the ready, and we are having chicken noodle soup for dinner. 

When it comes to a hearty soup I use the chop and toss method.  Onions, celery, and carrots taste good and feel good, so they go in the pot to dry roast before I pour in chicken broth and water.  I add the chicken and cook.  When the chicken has fully cooked, I pull it out, shred the meat and remove any skin and bone.  Put the meat back, spice, taste, spice... I think most folks have a tried and true chicken noodle soup recipe laying around.

Oh but the noodles!  Fresh pasta is so easy and so special and so delicious.  For noodle soup a nice wide egg noodle is perfect.

Combine two eggs and two egg yolks, set aside.  Place two cups of flour in a bowl or on a work surface.  Make a well in the center, add your eggs and work your flour into the egg with a fork. when the dough comes together enough to use your hands, kneed together, shape into a disk, and let rest for at least an hour.

When it is time to roll out your dough, I suggest working a quarter to a third at a time.  You can roll pasta dough by hand with a rolling pin.  I am very modern and fortunate to have a pasta roller, so I just feed it through the machine.

When you have reach your desired thickness, you can flour, fold and cut into your desired with!
Gingerly pull apart and add your pasta to your soup.  Your pasta will only take a few minuets to cook (depending on how thick it is) after three minuets I will usually check it.

Hearty and warming soup, perfect for a winter meal... or a rainy June I suppose.  I'm not complaining, I love noodle soup!  I'm just ready for river trips and tee shirts.  Until then, stay dry and warm.

Farewell Papas and Pollo

Once upon a time there was a Southwest meets Humboldt County restaurant in Sebastopol California.  I did love the cabbage salsa and the marinated tofu.  Unfortunately it seems the inconsistency of both the food and the hours has finally done them in.
In truth I'm not exactly sure when they closed, but as soon as I realized I would never get a Papas Tofu again I got a craving I couldn't shake.  I decided I had to make my own.  Papas Tofu is simple enough in concept.  It is a baked potato that acts as a vessel for everything you would have in a burrito.  Rather then meat there is tofu, and the tofu is the mystery.  For may years there has been speculation about what the marinade is, some say soy sauce, others swear it's yeast.  I fried ours in soy sauce.  It was good, not perfect, but it hit the spot.

For Papas Tofu at home:
Start with a baked potato, pile black beans on top, followed by cheese.

Then the tofu!
To make this tofu, you need to cube and marinate firm tofu for at least an hour, you can design your own marinade.  I just used some garlic an soy sauce.  Then fry the tofu with a little olive oil until golden.

I always ordered mine with extra lettuce, so I add a lot of greens and fresh salsa (hot house tomatoes are finally at the farmers market, and they will do for now)

Papa tofu at home is a nice substitute for the real thing, and incredibly filling dinner!

Make Do

Hello!  It's me!  Tonight's dinner was Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Golden Beets with Speck and Gruyere!

Improvising a meal is easy.  You take two (or more) of your favorite meals and you put them together in one bowl and hope for the best.  As my dad says, "It all looks the same in your stomach."  In some cases that could be a really bad idea (like hamburger milkshakes or broccoli ice cream), but in this case it was awesome.  The sweet dirtiness of roasted brussels sprouts and beets complimented the smokey speck, and the gruyere was sharp enough to keep it interesting.  Here's what you'll need:

10-20 Brussels Sprouts
4 Golden Beets
1/4 lb. Speck  (or Proscuitto)
A handful of Gruyere
Some Olive Oil

Preheat the oven to 425˚.  Cut the Brussels Sprouts in half lengthwise and put them on a pan.  Peel the Golden Beets and cut them to be roughly the same size as the Brussels Sprouts, then put them on the same pan.  Drizzle Olive Oil over the vegetables, sprinkle some salt on top, and put them in the oven for 30-40 minutes.  Cut the Speck into 1/2" squares.  Grate the Gruyere.  When the B.S. and Beets are done, put everything in a bowl and mix it all up.  Serve warm.  It's pretty good cold too.

Improvisation is probably the most important skill for home cooking, so use it often and don't be afraid to screw it up!  Thanks for reading!  Peace!

One End, One Beginning

A month or so before the official start of spring, after the trees have started blossoming, and all the daffodils have come up I start to crave peaches and peppers something fierce.  The end of February/ beginning March is a pretty bleak time for food.  Not as bleak in Northern California then most other places in the US, as we have a year around growing season, we always have plenty of greens, but I want squash!
We got lucky the other night and found the very last of the winter squash at our local farm stand.  We love butternut squash.  We eat them all winter.  As with anything delicious we don't need to do much to it, our favorite way to eat butternut squash is simply roasted, usually in a warm butternut squash salad.

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad
Peel, cut in half, and scoop out the seeds
Slice the squash and toss with a little olive oil and a little maple syrup (the maple syrup is optional, but the syrup really helps to bring out the sweet butternut flavor) just enough to lightly coat the squash
Spread out on a baking sheet or two and roast in the oven at 400 until tender, and browning on the edges (I usually check every 20 minutes or so)

When the squash is done we lay them over a bed of greens lightly dressed with some kind of mild vinaigrette, sometimes with a soft cheese, whatever we have and whatever sounds good.

Now for strawberries and fresh peas!

Salads For Breakfast, Breakfast For Dinner

I like a big breakfast, and I have one almost every day.  Eggs in the morning are more essential than coffee, which I love, but believe it or not, I could take or leave.  My love for breakfast extends beyond breakfast and can easily spill into lunch or dinner. 
One of our favorite anytime breakfasts is tonight's dinner : poached egg salad.

 

Make any sort of simple green salad, fry some bacon and then chop it up.  Dress your salad with whatever dressing you like (we make a vinaigrette), then toss in the bacon.  Poach an egg and place it on top.  Toast a hunk of your favorite bread, serve it on the side, and voila:  Breakfast Dinner is served.

 

Joyeux Anniversaire

French food is easy.  All you need is butter and thyme. 

We were happy to have my aunt and uncle over for dinner to celebrate my aunt's birthday.  I decided to make a savory tart, a "French" onion tart.

My aunt loves France- she used to live in Paris, and she taught me to (maybe unintentionally) associate delicious, fashionable, and lavender (the herb) with France.  When I was younger we would have tea parties with rose tea and cream, little cakes, and pastries.  When I got older we had tea parties with stinky cheese, mustard, rosé, and violet liqueur.

French food had a long and complicated reputation.  I'm not so interested in soups, sauces, and meats that take days to prepare.  I'm interested in the fresh, simple, and delicious French "bistro" food.  Easy, hearty, and served with wine.  The way real French people eat.

My onion tart starts with a simple pastry dough:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 sticks of cold butter
1/4 (or less) cup of ice cold water

Mix the butter and flour together until it is crumbly, I do it in the stand mixer for less than a minute.
With the mixer still running, slowly pour ice cold water into the flour mixture until it just comes together.  Let the dough rest for at least an hour in the refrigerator.
The secret to good tart dough is keep it cold before you cook it.  The cold butter creates steam in the oven and that gives you a lovely flaky dough.

Nick cut 4 beautiful onions for me, because they were making me cry, and then I sauteed them with some olive oil, salt, and herbes de Provence.  When the onions were soft I piled them on a very cold, rolled out tart dough.  Then I dotted the onions with fresh goat cheese and prosciutto.  Then they went into the oven at 350 for 20 minutes.  Until everything looks golden and delicious.

 

Bon Appetit!

Give Me A Beet

Perhaps it's a result of years and years of not eating meat, but when I make dinner the vegetable still seems to be the main course.
For dinner we invited our dear friend John and his visiting guest.  I broke rule number one for having dinner guests and I made something I had never made before.
I roasted whole beets encrusted in salt. Preparing beets this way brings out a truly delicious beet flavor and a velvety texture (supposedly).

I heated the oven to 375 ish and buried large beets in sea salt, though I probably should have used a coarser salt.
I slow roasted the beets for about two hours.

When they were tender (I just stuck a skewer in to test), I pulled them out and cracked the salt open cut into these precious beets.  Thank goodness for my sweet guests they were, as reported, delicious! The texture was superb.
As side dish (or back-up) I roasted a chicken.
Nick and I make a really simple chicken. We pat dry the bird, sprinkle with salt and roast at 450 for an hour.  That's it.  It's amazing.
I also made a cheesy polenta with chard.
Prepare polenta on the stove top (1 part polenta to 3 parts water)
I usually saute some diced onion and garlic before adding the water, then bring the water to a boil and stir in the polenta.  Stir.  When the polenta is thick and creamy I will add cheese, chard, and any other spice to taste.  Pop it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or so, until the cheese starts to brown.
Dinner came together beautifully, roasted beets, with a side of chicken and polenta.
When our guests arrived I was sadly informed that John hated beets.  He agreed to taste a little, then he ate an entire beet.

I'd say that's a successful dinner.