Sunday Night: Grilled Veggies with Polenta; Orzo Salad with Fava Beans and Spinach; Cream Cheese with Oranges

We had neighbors over for dinner last night and needed to do a vegetarian meal; this is what we came up with.

For the veggies, I used three different kinds of small summer squash from the farmer's market (pattypan, Ronde de Nice, sunburst), red onion, and red peppers. We ate the veggies with polenta (hard polenta with a bit of butter and parmesan made with Bittman's technique I) and a vinaigrette ("Jean-George's Classic Vinaigrette" from FStoS).

The salad was made with diced red onion, diced celery, fava beans (farmer's market), orzo, and spinach (CSA box) and dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Dessert was a variant on the Oranges and Cream Cheese recipe from JPFF, the variation being that I added the julienned orange zest to the cream cheese instead of using it as a topping. I also lightened the cream cheese after adding the orange and sugar by whipping it for a couple of minutes.

Saturday Night: Beans and Greens, Diced Veggie Salad

This week's CSA box has a huge quantity of greens, so I'm putting greens in everything! :-) Last night I did a cross between beans and greens and the cannellini beans with chorizo from a couple weeks ago.

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 red onion, diced
4 oz chorizo, diced
1 15 oz can cannellini beans
1/2 a head of escarole, washed and very coarsely chopped
a good pinch pimenton
rosemary
a couple sprigs of lemon thyme
white wine
chicken stock
olive oil

The preparation is pretty self explanatory. I served this topped with a bit of chive and some good olive oil and accompanied it with bread. It was excellent. Andrea's comment: "too bad it's not winter so we can have this more often".

Diced Veggie Salad:
I started with marinating some minced red onion in salt and red-wine vinegar for a bit. I added fresh corn (microwaved with a bit of water for a couple minutes to soften it), radish, cucumber (seeded), and carrots. The veggies should be diced to be about the same size as the corn kernels (I actually diced the cucumber coarser than this, but it should have been the same size as the corn). I also added some julienned sweet basil, a bit of sugar, and a grind of black pepper. Finish with some good olive oil.

To accompany this we had some sauteed rapini greens (with garlic and crushed red pepper). mmmmmm, rapini greens.

Thursday night: poached sole with pesto-cream sauce, "risi bisi"

For the main course here I made a quick pesto (no parmesan, and we had no pine nuts, so I used walnuts) with CSA basil, mixed it with a couple tablespoons of cream, and served it on top of poached sole fillets (from TJs). Poaching was probably not the best preparation method for the sole, which ended up being pretty tasteless, particularly when compared with the pesto. Next time I'll try sauteeing the fish.

To accompany the fish I made a quick risi bisi from the "soupy rice with peas" recipe in JPFF (using spring garlic and scallions from the CSA box as the allium component), and some sauteed greens (radish greens and spinach from the CSA box). The rice was particularly good this time, maybe because of the different alliums?

Dessert was CSA strawberries macerated in sugar and a bit of lemon juice. To serve, I added a bit of grappa, spooned the berries and juice over crushed shortbread, and topped with the usual soft whipped cream. I almost dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back for the grappa idea, which worked really well.

Monday Night: Crab Cakes and Potato Gratin

Last night I tried the "Crab Cakes with Red Sauce" recipe from JPFF. We ended up eating crab "cakes" that had great flavor, but pretty much no structural integrity. I know that there's always a balance in making crab cakes between lightness and cohesiveness, but these were a bit too far on the "falling completely apart" side.

Some notes:

1. The canned crab we got at Costco tasted ok, but it was in very small pieces. Nothing like proper lump crabmeat.
2. The wasabi in the sauce never really "bloomed". I don't know if that was because I added the powder directly to the sauce instead of making a paste with water first, but that would be an easy question to answer.
3. It probably wouldn't hurt to get the breadcrumbs a bit finer than I did last night; I put too much bread in the food processor at once and it stayed pretty coarse.

Andrea made a gratin to accompany this out of the leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday night, some grated carrot, scallion, and roasted pepper. Seasoned with nutmeg and pimenton, and topped with some grated parmesan, this was delicious.

For dessert we did another quickie thing from JPFF, "Banana coupe" (bananas macerated in honey, lime, and bourbon, served over crushed cookies and topped with toasted almond slices and a bit of sour cream). This was really good, but the bourbon was a bit sharp. I'll try to use less tonight when we make the second half.

Sunday Night: Steak Diane

We were out of town all weekend and, after a day of hiking at Pinnacles, I didn't have energy for anything involved. So on the way back we stopped at WF and got a nice ribeye, which I coated with black pepper, seared in olive oil and butter, then finished in the oven. I made the sauce (derived from FStoS) by deglazing with cognac and adding grainy mustard and some cream. We had the steak with green beans and mashed potatoes. I think it's worth revisiting this sauce with a nice beef stock instead of the cream, but it was damn good as it stands.

Tuesday Night: Schnitzel with Salsa

I couldn't eat leftover braised beef again last night, so we had schnitzel. I used a piece of pork loin, pounded out to about 1/4", and the standard flour-egg-crumb breading. As a "sauce", we used chile morita roasted salsa from WF (this stuff is quite good). I was in the mood for really hot, so I added a slug of habanero sauce to mine.

We had the schnitzel with sauteed veggies (spring garlic, broccoli, onion, zucchini, with some hot sauce), steamed rice, and a salad.

Saturday Night: Italian Dinner Party

We had a big group over for dinner on Saturday for an approximation to an Italian seven-course meal.

The full menu was:

1. Antipasti: Jolie did a beautiful combination of things, including some fabulous fava beans and roasted peppers with capers.
2. Soup: Minestrone from Cati, I need to get this recipe (from the Biba Tratorria book) from her.
3. Pasta: Cannelloni filled with mixed greens (using the FStoS recipe).
   
4. Secondi: Stracotto (from A Tuscan in the Kitchen) , gratineed asperagus (from Marcella Hazan), sauteed mushrooms (also from Hazan).
   
5. Salad: Steve and Dianna brought mixed greens
6. Cheese: a nice selection also brought by Steve and Dianna
7. Fruit: Karen and Jamshid brought strawberries and blood oranges from their CSA program. We tossed the strawberries with a bit of balsamico and black pepper. The oranges were beautiful on their own.
   

I don't have the whole list of wines we did, and I stupidly took out the recycling this morning without writing stuff down. What I know: Nerello del Bastardo, two kinds of prosecco (one we got at AG Ferrari, one Aaron and Jolie brought), a couple other Italian reds, a California red (Beaulieu Tapestry) from Karen and Jamshid, an alto adigo that Jon and Cati brought, the muscat that I bought at Costco a couple months ago.

Random notes:

• We picked up some par-baked italian bread from Il Fornaio at TJs. I was very surprised by how good this stuff is.
  
• Six pounds of uncooked greens takes up a LOT of space. I took before/after pictures, I just need to remember to grab them and put them online.
• I need to make lists when I cook as part of a dinner party. I have a strong tendency to forget final steps after I start talking/eating. So I forgot to add finely chopped parsely to the mushrooms. I also forgot to pour some truffle oil over them before serving. Dumbass. Luckily, they were still good, but still...
• The alto adigo was interesting. I'm not good enough to decouple wines from each other/food when I have them in close proximity, but this seemed to be a relatively low-acidity white with a bit of body. Of course, I tasted it after a glass of prosecco, so that may not be the best assessment.
  

Despite my forgetfulness, I'm really happy with how the food turned out. [I'm also glad to have a group of friends willing to play along with these crazy ideas. :-)]

Note: Making Creme Fraiche

The other night on one of the Julia Childs cooking shows she mentioned that you can make creme fraiche by combining 1 cup of heavy cream with 1 tbs of cultured buttermilk and letting it stand overnight.

I'll have to give this a try.

Thursday: Crepes with Greens, Zucchini with Chorizo

Last night we finished off the last of the buckwheat crepe batter by filling crepes with sauteed greens (broccoli rabe, radish greens, spring garlic, chervil, all from the CSA box) and romano cheese. Three of the four crepes I made ended up ugly as sin, but the food was still excellent.

To accompany this I diced a couple zucchini (1/2" dice), microwaved them for a couple minutes until soft, then added them to a pan with some sauteeing chorizo slices. Given how potent the chorizo was, I had too much of it, but the dish was still good. Particularly since it was the product of a "shit, the chorizo I'm frying is too strong to eat straight up" thought process.

Dessert was macerated strawberries (CSA), topped with a creme fraiche simulant (half sour cream, half heavy cream) mixed with a bit of sugar and vanilla. This would have been better on biscuits, but that wasn't going to happen last night and it was still damn fine.

Wednesday Night: Scallops with Crepe Pieces

This was inspired by the Scallops with Crepe Chips recipe in FStoS, but I simplified it a bit. I did use the buckwheat crepes recipe from FStoS, which was a problem last time. I got it right this time -- there is supposed to be a cup of water in the batter that's not mentioned in the ingredient list, just in the text. Letting the batter rest for an hour helps a lot too.

To make the crepe pieces: cut each crepe into quarters, then cook them in a bit of oil until they get crisp.
To make the scallops: sprinkle 1/2 pound bay scallops with salt, pepper, and cayenne, then sautee them in a couple Tbs of butter over medium-high heat.
To make the dressing: mix 1 Tbs grainy French mustard, 2 Tbs cider vinegar, 2 Tbs oil.

Serve the scallops with the remaining sauce in the pan, top with minced shallot and a bit of the dressing. Serve the crepe pieces on the side.

For vegetables we had, from the CSA box, a couple spears of steamed broccoli and a bit of broccoli rabe sauteed with garlic and crushed red pepper.

The whole thing was delicious, though it would have been nice to have the crepe pieces a bit crisper (like they're supposed to be). I got hurried and didn't let them cook long enough.

Tuesday Dinner: Cannellini Beans with Chorizo

This was an improvised weekday throw-together.

~1 oz slab bacon, diced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 a red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 a red pepper, diced
~4 oz chorizo (6" or so), sliced
15 oz bottle cannellini beans
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs thyme
a good pinch pimenton
olive oil
chicken stock
white wine
parsley

Heat some olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until it's almost brown. Add the garlic and cook until it starts to brown. Add ~1/2 cup chicken stock, onion, red pepper, pimenton, and herbs and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer a couple of minutes until the onions start to soften. Add the chorizo and wine. Simmer 5-10 minutes, adding more liquid when needed. Add the beans, along with their liquid. Simmer another 5 minutes. Add a grind of black pepper and adjust seasoning.
Serve topped with coarsely chopped parsley, chives, and a bit of olive oil.

The chorizo, pimenton, and herbs here worked really well with the beans to make a great dish. Don't forget the parsley at the end, it's a vital touch of green flavor.

Monday Dessert: Raspberry Gratin

Dinner was leftovers (good leftovers, but leftovers nonetheless), but for dessert I made one of the Raspberry Gratins from JPFF (the one with shortbread cookies). Yum, yum!

Sunday Night: Vegetable Soup

Andrea wasn't feeling well yesterday, so I just did a simple veggie soup for my dinner:
Chicken stock, small yukon gold potatoes, diced bacon, diced carrots, thinly sliced green garlic, mustard greens, bay leaves, thyme and parsley (tied together).

I served it with croutons and parmesan cheese. mmmm, soup.

Saturday Night: Grilling

Saturday night I did a bunch of stuff on the grill. It had been too long since I did an all-grill meal. The menu was:

1. grilled chicken livers with satay sauce from Thrill of the Grill: the variation here is that I used a Thai satay sauce that's been in the freezer since Kurt and Cheryl's shower.
   
2. grill bread from Let the Flames Begin
3. grilled vegetable salad: zucchini, onions, and red peppers grilled and then tossed with lemon juice and olive oil. Served over green lettuce
4. grilled chicken wings: a mixture of plain wings and wings soaked all day in jerk marinade (from last week), served with 3 sauces:
1. satay sauce
2. banana-guava ketchup
3. the sauce from the "Chicken Wings Basque Style" from Thrill of the Grill (This is garlic, parsley, rosemary, lemon, olive oil, tabasco)

No dessert from the grill, but I don't think any would have fit in my stomach.

Grilled chicken wings with assorted sauces will definitely have to stay on my list of things of things to make; they are just excellent.

Thursday night: Oven Hobo Pack

JPFF has a hobo pack recipe (potatoes and sausage cooked in foil, or something like that) that we made last night. Unfortunately Whole Foods had no kielbasa (how can that be???), so I substituted linguica. This wasn't really a good substitution -- the flavor is far too strong. Anyway, aside from the Wrong Sausage, this dish has great promise.

I also made asparagus sauteed with shallots (also from JPFF). That was really, really good. The longish sautee sweetens the shallots and they complement the asparagus beautifully.

Tuesday Night: Spaghetti and Meatballs

I borrowed Cati's copy of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and I was intrigued by the first pasta sauce recipe: "Tomato Sauce with Onions and Butter", so last night I made up a batch and served it over spaghetti with some meatballs (out of the freezer) and steamed asparagus (WF is finally starting to get some good, thick asparagus in) on the side.

The sauce is incredibly simple: combine 16 oz chopped canned tomatoes with 5 Tbs of butter, a halved onion, and some salt in a pan; bring it to a low simmer and allow it to cook, uncovered, for about 45 minutes. Stir it occasionally to prevent sticking and break up any tomato chunks. Remove the onion halves and adjust seasonings before serving. Add a pinch of sugar if the acidity seems too high.

As I enjoyed this dinner (really enjoyed!), I kept thinking things like: "Wow, this sauce is great. I bet it would be even better with some fresh basil or crushed red pepper." Then I would have to
smack myself and remember: "No, the beauty of the sauce is its utter simplicity."

Sunday Night: Chicken with Mushrooms

I came across a recipe for chicken and morels in a white-wine cream sauce while reading Jacque Pepin's Techniques yesterday morning. The recipe is straightforward, reasonably quick (particularly compared to some of the multi-day m0nsters in Techniques), and it sounded great.

So that's what we had for dinner last night. Since dried morels are obscenely expensive at Whole Foods, I used dried porcinis. These aren't the same, but they are awfully tasty.

The dish turned out great. I used to be really down on French cream sauces, for no good reason, but this was a beautiful example of combining a few simple but good ingredients (shallots, cream, white wine, sherry, pan drippings, mushrooms) and getting something amazing.

We had the chicken with some baked cauliflower, a loaf of pain de campagne, and a quick parsley salad (coarsely chopped parsley, red pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper) I made to act as an antidote to the richness of the chicken.

Quickie Mango Jam

Whole Foods had some really good mangoes on sale, so we bought five of them and I just threw together a quick mango jam. I want to record the quantities before I forget:

1 kg chopped mango
juice of 4 limes
4oog sugar

Throw everything in a pot and heat gently to the boil. While it's heating, use a hand blender to homogenize it some. When the jam reaches a boil, turn off the heat.

I don't have a final comment on the flavor of this stuff yet, but preliminary testing (on a biscuit from the other night) is very promising. :-)

Thursday night strawberries

Once again we had strawberries in our CSA box. These aren't quite as tasty as last time, but they're still damn good. I repeated the procedure from last time (macerate for a bit, serve with very soft whipped cream), but this time I served them on some biscuits. For the biscuits, I made a half-recipe of the standard biscuits from Bittman, using yogurt, and I added 1 Tbs of sugar to the batter.

Even though the strawberries weren't quite as good, the overall dessert was even better because of the biscuits. Thanks for the idea Paul!

Thursday night: Pork Stirfry with flash-fried greens

This was one of those "let's use up leftovers" stirfrys. I used pork chunks (marinated in ginger, soy sauce, garlic, dried chili, rice vinegar, corn starch and a bit of sugar), broccoli stems, onion, and mushrooms for the stir fry and then augmented the sauce with szechuan peppercorns, a bit of dark chicken stock and hoisin sauce. I should have put red bell pepper in the stirfry, but I forgot.

Accompanying this was some basmati rice (leftovers from Wed. night) and flash-fried dino kale with green garlic (both from the CSA box).