Wednesday Night: Steak with Mushrooms, Sauteed Vegetables

We've been building up to needing to make a batch of sauteed vegetables for a while -- to help empty some of the CSA stuff out of the fridge. Last night was the night.
Approximate quantities: 4 strips bacon, 1 leek, 1 delicata squash, 4 "french" carrots, 1 1/2 turnips (one yellow, 1/2 red-top; this ends up being about 2 cups diced turnip), 2 cups diced eggplant, 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig marjoram (dried), 2 Tbs chopped frozen basil.
I served the vegetables drizzled with good olive oil and with a spoon of parsley/garlic (overly strong parsley/garlic... whoa).

To go with the vegetables, I sauteed the last of the chateaubriand (used in the pho). I salted and peppered the steak liberally, sauteed it in about a Tbs of butter until all sides were nicely browned, then transferred to the 300 degree toaster oven. To make a sauce I deglazed with a chopped shallot and about 1/2 cup of red wine, reduced the wine heavily, added about a cup of chopped oyster mushrooms, cooked until they were soft, added a bit more wine and another dab of butter.

We also had a green salad. Everything was most excellent, though the vegetables could have used a bit of potato to tame those turnips.

TAME THOSE TURNIPS!

Tuesday Night: Cookies

I couldn't just do nothing last night, so I made a batch of cookies. :-)

I made a half batch of "The World's Best Cookies" from San Francisco a la Carte (get the recipe using Amazon's amazing "Search Inside the Book" feature).

Though they have a goofy name, these are really nice cookies: they keep a long time, have a good variety of flavors, and aren't overly sweet. Needless to say, I don't do the "sprinkle the finished cookies with sugar" thing.

leftover leftovers!

The downside of all that cooking on the weekend is that we end up with so many leftovers that there's no cooking during the week.

Damn tasty leftovers though.

Sunday's Roast

Last night I made two things from BittmanWorld -- pork stuffed with prunes and apricots, and braised red cabbage [CSA] with apples [CSA]-- as well as a batch of mashed potatoes with turnips.

For the two Bittman things I pretty much followed the recipes in the book, aside from using a "ribeye" roast of pork. For the potatoes I used a 2:1 ratio of yukon gold potatoes [CSA] to turnip; I cooked the turnips by dicing and roasting them to prevent them from getting soggy.

We were both very happy with the food.

Saturday Night: Pho

When I flipped through BittmanWorld the first time and saw a pho recipe, there wasn't much doubt that I'd have to give it a try. Since it's definitely a weekend prep, and Andrea was very enthusiastic, we made this yesterday.

I pretty much followed the recipe, though I used "beef knuckles" from Draegers (some piece of leg bone with a substantial chunk of meat still attached) instead of plain bones and chateaubriand instead of sirloin.

This recipe is really simple, it's just time consuming and is certainly a form of torture as the whole house fills with the smell of star anise, cloves, and ginger. But the results are certainly worth it: Pho is just soooo good.

Comments:

1. The beef knuckles are meaty enough that I would have been fine leaving the chuck out of the recipe entirely. They have a great flavor and enough connective tissue that they'd probably make a really good roast or braise on their own... Something to remember now that we're in roasting and braising season. :-)
2. Even though we pre-heated the bowls (we pretty much always warm plates and bowls these days, it's great), and used boiling broth, there was enough cold stuff in the bowls that the soup wasn't as hot as we liked. So we tossed the finished bowls in the microwave for a minute after assembling them. It would be better to do this before adding the thinly sliced beef and herbs.
3. I resisted the temptation to add lemongrass to the broth, because I thought it might overpower the other ingredients. That was probably the right decision, because the broth is fairly subtle (at least by my standards), but I'd still like to try adding some lemongrass at some point.
   

New Cookbook

Last week I found out about the publication of Mark Bittman's new Best Recipes in the World. It's a stupid name -- it reminds me too much of the America's Test Kitchen titles -- but how could I possible resist a new Bittman book? Particularly one with loads of recipes from places other than France, Italy, and the US? The answer to that is pretty easy: I couldn't.

After paging through most of the book, I'm very happy with it.

I'm sure to be using this book frequently, so it's getting a new abbreviation: BittmanWorld. Now I just have to go through my box of index cards and throw out all those Minimalist recipes that are in there. :-)

Note to my future self about beurre blanc

It seems that beurre blanc, or whatever it is that I make when I try to make beurre blanc, isn't half so fragile as I believed.

I made a batch on Sunday night and it's been sitting, covered, at room temp since then. When we've wanted to use it, we just throw it in the microwave for 15-20 seconds and then whisk it a bit. The sauce comes right back together and tastes fine. I'm sure that I would notice some difference if I were a super taster, but I'm not, so I don't.

This is just fabulous for Andrea and I: we both like beurre blanc a lot, but it's a bit too much of a hassle to make for a single dish. Plus making only two servings is pretty much impossible. So being able to make a half recipe from Techniques and eat it over the course of a couple meals is most excellent.

Thursday night steaks

I fried up a couple of "tenderized round steaks" from our cow last night for dinner. To go along with them I made a quick sauce from: chopped parsley [CSA], chopped garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, a teeny bit of balsamico, toasted cumin seeds, sweet paprika, salt, and pepper.

As sides we had some roasted golden beet (from Wednesday), steamed broccoli [CSA] with beurre blanc (from Sunday), and a green salad[CSA].

For dessert we made an apple galette using the leftover (frozen) crust from Saturday's quiche.

Comments:

1. Beurre blanc isn't quite as perfect a match fro broccoli as beurre noisette, but it was still quite good.
2. The beets -- dressed with white balsamico, good olive oil, salt, and pepper -- continue to be enjoyable. Yay
3. The steaks were very flavorful, but not so tender. No big surprise there and I'd much rather have it that way than the other way around!
4. Unsurprisingly given how well the crust on the quiche turned out, the galette was really, really good. This is a great use of that leftover blob of crust that I always end up with I make quiche.
   

Wednesday Night: Winter Vegetable Soup

Last night we made some progress on using up stuff from two CSA boxes (last week and this week). I improvised a soup from leeks, delicata squash, carrots, onions, garlic, and chicken stock. I also roasted some golden beets and we had a green salad with some julienned watermelon radish.

The soup was fabulous. Surprisingly, the beets didn't taste too much like dirt, so Andrea and I both liked them; I guess maybe we only really dislike red beets.

Tuesday Night Curry

Last night I did a Thai red curry with shrimp, eggplant, and fresh shitake mushrooms. We were going to make a red cabbage salad, but we forgot. doh! Luckily there was plenty of delicious curry.

Monday Night: Farmers Market Treats

At Sunday's farmers market we picked up some nice looking artichokes and chantarelles. That pretty much set last night's menu: Steamed Artichokes with Beurre Blanc and Sauteed Chantarelles on Polenta.

I kept the chantarelle prep simple: I just sauteed the sliced mushrooms in olive oil with a bit of fresh thyme, some salt, and a small splash of balsamico. I drizzled the final dish with some black truffle oil and a sprinkle of chopped parsley before serving.

We also had a salad with mixed greens from our CSA box and some arugula from the farmers market.

For dessert I made a raspberry gratin (from JPFF).

Sunday Dinner Party

Jon and Cati did a petite sirah tasting last night followed by dinner. I brought a chicken-squash stew (from Big Flavors), served in a pumpkin, and a big pan of cornbread. For the stew, which ended up really nice, recipe deviations were:

1. I used chicken thighs instead of a cut up whole chicken. I boned the thighs and diced the meat after it was finished cooking so that the stew was easier to eat.
2. I used self-canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones.
   
3. I replace 1 Tbs of the cayenne with 1 tsp of smoked paprika; I thought the flavor of the paprika would work well and I didn't want to blow peoples' heads off too quickly.
4. I didn't add the lemon juice to the stew, but put it in a pitcher on the table for people to add on their own. I was afraid that the lemon would not go well with the wine, so I wanted to offer people the choice.

For future reference: I think this actually was a good pairing with the bigger petite sirahs we tried.

Saturday Night Quiche

I realized that it had been quite a while since I made a quiche, and quiche is good, so Saturday that's what I did.
As usual I used the crust recipe from Bittman, replacing 1 Tbs of cold water with cider vinegar.
The egg-base for the filling was also from Bittman (6 eggs, 2 cups milk). I also added some cubed bacon, spinach [CSA], minced onion, and smoked paprika.

To accompany the quiche, which was excellent, we had some broccoli sauteed with garlic in butter, topped with minced shallots.

Thursday Leftovers

To go along with the leftover steak au poivre from Wednesday night, we made a quickie pasta sauce using some sauteed eggplant [CSA] and the leftover tomato sauce from the weekend. We also had a green salad.
mmm, leftovers

Wednesday Night: Steak au Poivre

I made this from the recipe in Bourdain using the piece of ribeye (from our cow) that's been aging in the fridge since Monday. The aging definitely helped some in improving the flavor of the meat, but we still weren't thrilled with it. The sauce was, as expected, delicious.

We had the steak with leftover gratin from Tuesday and some sauteed spinach.

Tuesday Night Gratin

er, I'm a bit behind on this one. On Tuesday night I made another potato-celery root gratin, this time sticking more or less to the potato gratin recipe in How to Cook Meat (well, I added sauteed onions and bacon).

This turned out very well: getting the quantities right and pre-boiling the potatoes in the milk/cream mixture actually really helps (imagine that!). The one problem is that the pre-boiling technique precludes getting nice layers in the gratin dish. Oh well.

We had the gratin with the leftover ribeye with parsley/sherry sauce and figs from Monday night.

Monday night: steak and leftovers

Last night I made the entree we had originally planned for Sunday: "pan-seared delmonico steakwith parsley-sherry sauce and roasted figs", from How to Cook Meat, using one of the ribeyes from our cow. The dish was good, but Andrea and I were kind of disappointed by the flavor of the steak itself -- it just wasn't as good as some of the other cuts we've had. The other half of that package of beef is drying in the fridge, so we'll see if that makes a difference tomorrow.

To accompany the steak, we had leftover rice pilaf (from stuffing squash on Saturday) and potato-celery root gratin along with a green salad.

An aside: though it's not as nice while entertaining, it certainly is convenient to be able to close the kitchen door when doing pan-seared steaks!

Sunday Night: Gratin and Salad

After yesterday's hike I didn't have the energy/motivation to make the full dinner I had planned, so we just made a gratin with potato [CSA], celery root, onion, shallots, bacon, and Emmenthaler. To accompany that we had a big green salad. It's nice to have cooler weather so that we can start having more gratins and stews. :-)

Dessert was black mission figs poached (briefly) in a mixture of water, port and campari with a pinch of cayenne and black pepper (sauce recipe from JPT). I thickened this with cornstarch and we ate it over vanilla ice cream. I think the sauce could do with a bit more sweet, but this was still a very interesting dessert.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

This is a random idea that had been kicking around in my head for a while; last night we put it to the test.

1 acorn squash, halved and de-seeded
1/2 cup brown basmati rice
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 onion, fine dice
1/2 cup diced red cabbage
1/2 cup diced shitake mushrooms
1/4 cup dry white wine
10 raw almonds, slivered
salt and black pepper
olive oil

Cook the brown rice in the chicken stock with a pinch of salt.
Put the squash halves split-side up in a baking dish, season them with salt and pepper and drizzle on some olive oil. Bake at 400 until they start to get soft, 30-40 minutes.
Get a Tbs of olive oil hot in a pan and add the onion. Cook for a couple minutes, until the onion starts to soften. Add the cabbage and cook for another few minutes, until it starts to soften. Add the shitakes and cook until they give up their moisture and start to brown, another couple minutes. Add the wine and let it reduce by about half. Add the cooked rice and mix well. Cook for another couple of minutes until the liquid is gone. Adjust seasonings.
Stuff the squash halves with the pilaf and top with almond slivers.
Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, until the top is crunchy and the almonds start to take on some color.

These were really nice. I have to pat myself on the back a little bit for the balance of the dish: with the acidity of the wine playing off against the sweetness of the squash and the almonds complementing the nuttiness of the rice.

Garlicky Reduced Tomato Sauce

The idea for this sauce came from Marcella Hazan's "Tomato Sauce with Butter" recipe, though I gave up the wonderful clarity and simplicity of that recipe. I'm not sure I'd want to use this on pasta, though it might work on something really rustic (like "rags").

1 16oz jar tomatoes
1/2-1 cup red wine
8 cloves of garlic, very coarsely chopped
2 Tbs olive oil
1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Add all the ingredients to a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook at a gentle boil until the tomatoes have broken down and the volume is reduced by half or more, 45 minutes to an hour. Stir occasionally (more frequently towards the end) to prevent it from burning to the bottom of the pan.
Homogenize with a stick blender; this will also emulsify the sauce and beat in some air, so the color will lighten up a lot.
Adjust seasonings and serve.