Correction!

In my posting of 4/29/08 regarding Dave's Birthday Dinner on 4/26, I incorrectly identified the topping on the pulled pork as "onions." This was in fact, a "finishing sauce," which happened to contain onions. Please accept my apologies.

Happy Birthday Dave!!

For Dave's birthday on Saturday, we went to the 66 Russell Smokehouse and Raw Bar. It was delicious! The birthday boy himself got up at 5:30, or 5:00, or 4:30, maybe even 4:00AM to start the pork shoulders smoking. After many hours, it was falling apart:

Before we could have shredded pork, however, we needed to start with some items from the raw bar. Ellie and Dave's friend Mark set up the old kitchen sink outdoors with running water and took care of all the shucking. We had oysters and clams, both really cold and fresh and tasting of the ocean.
The shucked product. With a little daikon/soy sauce (Mark's creation) and a dash of Celtic Sea Salt, they were absolutely the best I've ever had.

And finally, dinner! The carrot salad was supposed to be coleslaw with cumin lime vinaigrette (Bobby Flay), but I got a little carried away shredding carrots and the bowl wasn't big enough for the second cabbage. It was very good nonetheless. The beans are from the Dinosaur BBQ cookbook, which Ellie and Dave enjoy making, and the big secret of those is how easy they are (I'm not telling, it's a SECRET), and in the foreground is the delicious delicious pork with some onions on top. You can also see the cheap buns--the secret to a good pulled pork sandwich, apparently.

My regret is not having taken a picture of Ellie's delicious and beautiful Dr. Pepper chocolate cake. It was a great dessert and an even better breakfast!

Friday Halibut

I don't know if I've posted this wonderful fish dish that Craig makes, but on Friday he did it again, and better than ever! It's halibut with a sauce made with tomatoes, capers, nicoise olives, and spinach, served over brown rice, alongside wonderful spring asparagus. The sauce is so delicious, I would be happy just with a big bowl of that, but it's even better over beautifully sauteed fish.

Sichuan Green Beans

Cook's has a great recipe for Sichuan Green Beans that's really quick and easy, perfect for a Sunday night.  Unfortunately, this time around I did not check the ingredients list too carefully, and I didn't have fresh ginger, sesame oil, or scallions.  I tried to make up for it with chili oil, ground ginger, and sesame seeds sprinkled on top.  Not bad!  The recipe uses ground pork, and says you can sub mushrooms for a vegetarian meal, but both times I've made it with both the pork and the mushrooms and I recommend it that way.  I used oyster mushrooms, and we served it over brown rice.  You can see the beets too--they didn't go, but were sooo good!

Mushroom Burgers

It was absolutely beautiful here on Saturday.  It felt like summer--warm, sunny, not windy.  We took advantage by busting out the grill for the first time this year.  Craig made us grilled portobello "burgers" and grilled veggies.  You can also see the chicken we were grilling for weekday lunches and above, in the foil, more of those coop beets I can't resist.

Here it is!  We got some of last summer's basil pesto out of the freezer to top our sandwiches, and also melted some leftover cheese (Laguiole and Piave) on top of the mushrooms.  The grilled onions were my favorite.

Leftovers

Saturday was Craig's mother's birthday. I made a couple of treats to take to the party, and we benefitted from the leftovers on Sunday night! I made her a loaf of cinnamon raisin walnut bread, from the Bread Baker's Apprentice. See the fancy cinnamon-sugar swirl? The second loaf, while not as pretty, made excellent Sunday morning toast.












I had also made an appetizer for the party, marinated mozzarella on baguette slices, topped with roasted tomato sauce from Cook's. I nearly ruined a jelly roll pan, but otherwise the sauce was really easy and delicious, and made a great pasta topping on Sunday night, alongside handmade spicy Italian sausage from Town Meats. I had added capers to the sauce, but I don't think they really made a difference one way or another. For the veg I roasted beets and celeriac, which didn't really go, but I needed to use them. The beets were from the coop, and really good.

Lentil Soup

Tonight it was back to simple food, goooood simple food. I made a batch of bread I was really happy with, and lentil soup from Cook's Illustrated. I made the "Moroccan" version, with cumin, coriander and more of that great lemon juice. The soup is really easy and doesn't require too many ingredients, yet is somehow so flavorful. And fyi, it's OK to use red wine instead of white if that's what you've got. I had intended to grill the baby bok choy and spring onion, but the weather didn't cooperate, so I just sauteed it up in some olive oil. Almost makes it OK that it's Sunday.

Welcome Spring

It's been warming up around here, and I wanted to welcome it in properly. Also, I've been planning a dinner for May, and had some recipes that looked wonderful but didn't make the dinner party cut for one reason or another. So last night Craig and I had a lovely date. First we had Fennel Scallop Pancakes with Mustard Sauce (Epicurious), enjoyed with a Nino Franco Rustico Prosecco.

I'm not a huge fan of scallops, but Craig loves them, and even I thought they were wonderful in this. The fennel pancakes would be wonderful with other proteins--I was thinking some sort of lacquered duck.

For the entree I got brave and tried out an Emeril, Paneed Veal and Risotto with Asparagus and Onion. Instead of cracker crumbs for the veal I used some of the porcini breadcrumbs Craig made for that Jamie Oliver pasta, which I had frozen, and I added some prosciutto to the risotto--a VERY good idea. We accompanied it with a wine Ellie and Dave gave us, a 2001 Foppiano Petite Syrah.

On top of the veal is arugula and grape tomatoes tossed with lemon juice and olive oil (organic lemon juice--I'm trying out preserved lemons and no way am I wasting that juice--hot toddy, anyone?), an idea I saw in an Italian cookbook which really worked well. The whole thing was so good and really not difficult.

And our favorite dessert, cheese and Tea Rose Petal Preserves. The cheese on the upper left is a Point Reyes Blue, a wonderful creamy blue with a great bite at the end. To the right is Laguiole, which we had a few weeks ago after the seafood stew. Creamy and crumbly, how do they do that?? Finally, a Piave Vecchio, really warm and rich.

And as if that weren't enough, we finished it all off with Inchmurrin 12-year Single Malt. Perfect.

Veggie Chili

On Sunday we were back to winter food, despite the weather (which I took advantage of--look for home grown lettuce and snow peas here soon, I hope). I baked some hippie bread and made vegetarian chili. Everyone has a "secret"--but not really--to his or her chili, mine is a dark beer, used to deglaze after sauteeing the onion and garlic in Penzey's medium-hot chili powder. I used kidney beans, black turtle beans, and great northern beans, and let it simmer a little too long--it was very thick--but I thought it was very tasty, and since I topped it with lowfat plain yogurt and skipped the traditional chili Fritos and cheddar cheese, pretty healthy.