Return of the CSA

Our CSA season started while I was away, and Craig was kind enough to save me some veggies.  For Date Night on Wednesday, I made a stirfry with CSA pak choi, kolrabi, and green garlic.  I threw in some carrots, shiitakes, and chicken sausage, and it was very tasty.  I'm not good at stir-fry sauce, so I mostly followed a recipe from Cook's, that is chicken broth based.  To spice it up, I threw in some of the wonderful hot Cambodian chili that Lisa and Chris brought us.

On Wisconsin!

I just returned from a few days in Wisconsin.  I had a great time and of course, ate and drank very well.  There is a new brewpub in Wausau, The Great Dane (offshoot of the Madison iteration), and they have probably the best ESB I've had ever.  It was so good I considered seeing if I could get the contents of a growler into little 3oz. bottles and into my carryon!

Both Mom and Dad cooked up some really good food.  These are the ginormous ribeyes that Mom and I got.  A lot of leftovers there!

I grilled them, only starting a small fire.  It seared them beautifully.  We split one, and topped it with some of my favorite mushroom red wine pan sauce.  We had beautiful lettuce from the farmers' market, and Mom roasted some amazing new potatoes.  Along with a pinot noir whose name and provenance escape me, this was great.

No one wanted me to lack for iron, so the next night Dad made ribs.  He used a dry rub and made some sauce to keep them moist during the long grilling time.  They were so good and tender!  We also had potato salad and baked beans from Zillman's Meat Market--the best baked beans in the world.  I enjoyed some Summit Pale Ale and New Glarus Spotted Cow with my meal.

I did eat one or two relatively healthy meals while I was there, and they were pretty tasty too.  This is a salad Mom made, all from the farmers' market.  Two kinds of lettuce, spring onion, asparagus, and those amazing little potatoes.

I had such a good time, and not just because I ate so well.  It was too bad Craig missed it, but I did bring him back some cheese!

Mackeral and Shrimp

I tried another NY Times healthy recipe last Wednesday, asparagus frittata with smoked trout. I couldn't find smoked trout, so I subbed mackeral. I did not do a good job making a frittata, it was more like scrambled eggs, but I thought it was pretty good, served over rice (I love rice with eggs). I topped it with some garden greens, of course. What I chose not to remember/believe, though, was that Craig not only doesn't like mackeral, he doesn't like smoked fish. Oops. The bonus for me was eating his fish, and he said it wasn't too bad.


On Friday I was pretty sure Craig would get me back for the mackeral by serving hamburgers or something, but he's a better person than I. He grilled wild-caught shrimp and sea scallops, and made a scampi with cherry tomatoes. He used anchovy paste instead of the actual fishies, and wasn't sure of the amount. We agreed he probably could have used more safely. He served it with sauteed rabe over whole wheat penne, and it was a great Friday. We drank a 2008 Clos du Bois Sauvignon Blanc.

More Tenderloin!

On Saturday we had the tip end of the tenderloin James got us. Meat that good deserves a good starter, so I wrapped prosciutto around fresh figs and Great Hill Blue, then grilled them and served them atop garden greens tossed in a vinaigrette. Delicious! I speared them with twigs from one of our sadly deceased rosemary plants, a victim of the tough winter (the other late rosemary is a victim of my tough watering policy).






The main course was prettier than it looks in this photograph--we were too excited to eat to spend much time on the art. Craig grilled it to perfection, and he's really getting good at those grill potatoes, yukon golds this time. I made the mushroom madeira pan sauce and a sundried tomato tarragon vinaigrette to top the asparagus. We drank a 2005 Bodega del Desierto 25/5 Merlot La Pampa. It was a little too assertive for me, although it went well with the meal. Definitely not a wine to be enjoyed on its own. The mushroom sauce needed salt, but the meal was great, and made great leftovers on Sunday, in the form of a salad with the blue cheese, beef, and tarragon vinaigrette over garden greens.

Asparagus salad with eggs

On Wednesday I made another NYTimes recipe for health, asparagus salad with hard-boiled eggs. I more or less followed the instructions, but used more egg and tossed in some garden greens. I seasoned it with fresh parsley, mint, and tarragon, and served it over brown rice. It was really good! Craig didn't like it quite as much as I did, but we both agreed it's worth repeating. Next time I think I would use a mix of wild and brown rice, and I would add a lot more herbs. I'd been worried the flavor of the mint and tarragon would be too much, but it needed more.

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!