Tuesday salads

Salads to deal with the heat:

1. cottage cheese, finely diced Walliser bacon (smoked and then dried with herbs and spices... fantastic stuff), parsley, black pepper, a bit of olive oil
2. cauliflower (steamed, then cooled to room temp with cold water), mashed garlic, white balsamico, good olive oil, chives, black pepper
3. A big mixed green salad

We accompanied the salads with bread and cheese.

Thursday at the grill

A nice day that was just screaming for grilling... so that's what I did:

1. Burgers (beef, salt, minced onion, minced garlic)
2. Various sausages (we found a package of mixed sausage from Ticino)
3. Fennel, grilled and then served with a basel vinaigrette
4. Big green salad (not grilled, of course)

Sunday cocktail: the bourbon sidecar

Eric Asimov did a post on the bourbon sidecar last week that just sounded excellent, so I "had" to try it.

It's the standard ratio: 2:1:1 bourbon (Makers Mark):triple sec (Curacao):lemon juice with a twist of lemon zest and it's really, really good.

Sunday: Lamb steaks

We found some lamb steaks from the leg (mmm, lamb ham) at the Coop. Since I happened to have some newly done preserved lemons in the fridge this one was almost too easy...

Marinate the lamb steaks in: diced preserved lemon, minced garlic, minced rosemary, black pepper, olive oil for a good while (I did 24 hours). Cook them in the grill pan (or on the grill). Serve with some reserved marinade as a relish.

We ate this delight with a big green salad and a "hobo pack" I made in the oven with new potatoes, onion, olive oil, salt, pepper, and paprika.

Saturday: chinese

Andrea's request for chinese yielded:

1. sweet and sour pork (recipe from Land of Plenty, I've made this one before).
2. dry fried eggplant (also from Land of Plenty, but I added szechuan peppercorns and chilis to the mix).

Of course we also had rice and a green salad.

Thursday: quick(ish) stewed veal

Andrea found some veal stew meat at half price, so that formed the basis for dinner.

Cut the veal into thinnish slices; brown well in clarified butter; add minced garlic, diced onion, diced carrot, and cook a few minutes; sprinkle over some flour and cook a few more minutes; deglaze with white wine and let it reduce to half; add chicken bouillon and bring to a simmer; add chopped fresh herbs and simmer for 20-30 minutes; just before serving add more herbs.

We ate this with sauteed spinach (the usual garlic, chili preparation, drizzled with balsamico for serving), noodles, and a big green salad.

so far behind...

Ok, Andrea was out of town for a week and there was lots of lettuce in the fridge, so I ate salad for a week.

Friday: first pesto of the season

The basel plants on the balcony needed to be trimmed back, so I made the first pesto of the season. Aside from having a bit too much garlic, it was another nice way to welcome summer.

Friday at the grill

The weather was good, so we had a couple people over and fired up the grill.

The grilled food:

1. Red peppers and fat spring onions, choppped and mixed into a salad
2. Red onions
3. Veal cipollata
4. Standard bratwurst
5. Small bratwurst (Nürnberger size) with sage
6. Meatballs (beef) flavored with allspice, lemon zest, black pepper, and salt then grilled on skewers.
7. A nice ribeye (it was on sale, I couldn't resist) done with salt and pepper

The non-grilled food:

1. a big green salad
2. baguette
3. flavored ketchups: ketchup+curry powder+hot paprika; ketchup+chipotle tabasco
4. a vinaigrette : cider vinegar, rapeseed oil, rosemary, chives, salt, pepper, honey

We ate well...

Wednesday: macaroni with meat sauce

a.k.a. Hörnli mit Gehacktes :-)

Soften some diced onion, diced carrot, and minced garlic in olive oil. Add ground beef along with some salt and cook, without browning, until the beef is most cooked. Add some white wine and reduce a bit. Add tomato puree, oregano, bay leaf, parsley, a bit of rosemary, black pepper, and a good pinch of sugar. Let cook uncovered, barely simmering for an hour or so. Serve over macaroni with a grating of parmesan.

Monday: stuffed kohlrabi

An adaptation of a recipe from this month's Le Menu.

Peel a couple kohlrabi, then steam them until they are about soft (about 20 minutes). Cut a flat bottom in each and scoop out the insides to give a ~1cm thick shell. Chop the insides coarsely and set aside.

Cook 300g of spinach (I did in the microwave), drain, and chop coarsely. Cook a minced onion with some minced garlic in butter until the onion is cooked, then stir in the spinach and a good pinch of salt. Once the spinach is cooked through, add pepper and freshly grated nutmeg. Stir in 2 eggs that have been beaten together with 5cl of sour cream; cook until the egg starts to set, then stir in 100g of grated gruyere.

Put the kohrabi shells in a lightly buttered dish. Fill them with as much of the spinach filling as fits inside (I ended up using about half, which makes sense since the recipe is for 4 shells ;-), sprinkle the chopped kohlrabi around, top with grated cheese, pour a mixture of cream and veggie bouillon around the whole thing, then bake at 200C until the top is brown and the liquid is bubbly.

We ate this with the leftover risotto and a big green salad and were not displeased.