Morels and Veal

Erika and Grace came to dinner on Saturday night, which was perfect timing, because I had found fresh morels at WF, and I knew Grace was the person to appreciate them. We enjoyed our first course on the porch. I grilled wild-caught shrimp and served them with microgreens from the farmers' market, a warm round of MA goat cheese, asparagus, and the morels, sauteed in butter with a little tarragon. Everything was very tasty, and enjoyed with our new favorite, the Jean-Marc LaFage. The morels were AWESOME.

After we moved indoors, the photo quality decreased, but the food was still pretty good. The potatoes, sliced and baked in a cast-iron skillet with butter, salt, and blue cheese, were not spectacular. I served "veal birdies, Tidewater-style," from How to Cook Meat. It's basically veal cutlets wrapped around prosciutto and crab meat. The pan sauce is made with capers and lemon. I think next time I would make more sauce, with some broth and/or wine. This definitely needed a little something else on the plate, but it was good. We drank Chartron La Fleur 2007 white Bordeaux.

I served my new favorite company dessert, chocolate souffle with vanilla bean creme anglaise. I took more care to even out the tops of the souffles this time, and they rose better, and the whole thing was perfect with a fresh strawberry.

Steak!!

James got Craig a beef tenderloin for a really good price, and Craig portioned it into steaks.  We dry-aged two of them in the fridge, and enjoyed them on Saturday to celebrate a long weekend and 5 years together.  Craig manned the grill, and I was in charge of the pan sauce.  I used reconstituted dried porcini and morels, fresh cremini, and thyme and garlic.  This smelled amazing:

Craig did an excellent job not just grilling the steaks, but also fingerling potatoes and asparagus.  We tossed the fingerlings in a balsamic-garlic-rosemary reduction, and topped our steaks with a French Bleu and the silky mushroom pan sauce.  A bonus atop the whole thing was our very first garden greens, tossed in lemon juice and olive oil.  Delicious!

We drank a Barbera we brought back from our honeymoon, a 2004 Gagliasso.  The steak was exactly medium-rare, with a great grill crust.  The asparagus could have been fresher, but that is the only thing we would have changed, this was a crazy good meal.

It's squid season, and Craig's been going out frequently in the evenings.  Unfortunately, they seem to be finicky this year, but he did catch two on Friday night.  He made them into a delicious appetizer last night, with mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, kalamata olives, garlic, fennel, and a little of the balsamic drizzle from Saturday's potatoes.  

Great job Craig!   I hope you catch more!

Eggs and Sage

Our sage has come back beautifully from the winter, and since I had some duck eggs from the coop in the fridge, I searched "eggs sage" on Epicurious.  This is what it came up with, Hungarian eggs with sage for dinner on Wednesday.  Basically it's just poached eggs with a sage butter served over greek yogurt mixed with raw garlic.  I used olive oil and did the eggs over easy, per a reviewer's report that that works well.  I also worked on my grilled pita bread, this time using the Ben pizza stone.  You can see it's more puffed up this time, but still needs a little more practice.  This was pretty good, but only that.  Definitely easy though, and I may try it again.

Scallops and Sea Bass

Craig went all out for dinner on Friday night. It was a beautiful day, perfect for grilling fish. We started with grilled scallops--definitely the way to do scallops. The high heat of the grill caramelized the sugars, while the inside stayed moist and tender.

Our entree was a black sea bass Craig got a Champlin's fish market. He stuffed it with lemon, rosemary, and thyme, and grilled it with asparagus. A little skin was lost on the flip, but the fish was amazing. We agreed that a little fat would not have been out of place, either as an avocado salsa, or (my idea) bacon, somehow cooked on/in/with the fish. It was perfectly done and fresh and delicious. We drank our new favorite white, the Jean Marc LaFage.

Stir-Fried Snow Peas with Soba

On Wednesday I made another NY Times recipe for health, using buckwheat soba noodles. Apparently buckwheat is not only not wheat (and gluten-free), but is a complete protein. The sauce is made from peanut butter, soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, chile oil, and cayenne. Instead of the cayenne, I used some of the Cambodian chile that Lisa and Chris gave us--WOW is that hot! I used more snow peas than called for, and served it on mixed salad greens. It was very good, although next time I think I'll add some fish sauce, to deepen it a little.

Hannahbells and Veal

Lisa and Chris came over for dinner Saturday night. We started with my attempt at a salad I'd read about on a menu at Chez Pascal (more on that later, I hope), but hadn't actually seen or sampled, Caramelized Hannahbells with marinated beets, pine nuts, and endive and a honey vinaigrette. I was able to get the Hannahbells, a lovely little fresh creamy cheese from Westport, MA, but Farmstead Cheese was out of the plain flavor and only had scallion. NOT a sacrifice. I cooked the beets per the Cook's recipe for roasted beets and carrots, since that used a honey vinaigrette (I was able to get 22 Conch honey). Craig and Chris had fun taking a blowtorch to the cheese, and it was a really good salad. The cheese was all warm and melty and the endive worked well with the sweet beets and vinaigrette. I didn't think there was a whole lot of purpose to the pine nuts, but maybe if the beets were cut smaller they would add more flavor and texture.

We drank Monterrei Alma de Blanco Godello, a Spanish white,with this course.

Our main course was supposed to be veal medallions with baby artichokes in a lemon-thyme sauce, from How to Cook Meat. I was seduced by the fiddlehead ferns and couldn't get veal medallions, subbing cutlets that I cut into my own medallions, but otherwise followed the recipe. I served it with pistachio rice pilaf, from Epicurious, which worked perfectly to soak up that delicious pan sauce. The veal was very tender and the ferns added nice crunch.

I chose a rose for this course, M. Charpoutier Belleruche Cotes du Rhone 2007, which I liked a good deal, I thought it had a lot of flavor and body without being heavy. Craig is not a fan of roses, but every once in a while I pick one up, because I think they're nice in the spring.

I don't always get along with Mark Bittman, but his recipe for chocolate souffle was the only one I'd have the courage to try in Hollie, because he makes it seem so easy, and it was. I made mini souffles in ramekins, and they puffed up nicely. I served the souffles with a vanilla bean creme anglaise.

Sort of Greek

On Sunday I made my own attempt at Greek food.  I butterflied a chicken and marinated it in lemon juice, olive oil, and a lot of thyme and marjoram (the store was out of oregano), and grilled it skin side down.  I also grilled teeny tiny asparagus spears and spring onion that I had tossed in olive oil and more of the marjoram and thyme.  My big experiment was grilled pita bread.  I was disappointed that it didn't puff up, but you can see above that it turned out pretty.    Below is the finished chicken.

Below are the finished products, with some tzatziki, made with lots of mint and 2% Greek yogurt.  Yum.  The bread was really soft and I used mine to make little wraps with the chicken--it would make delicious gyros.