Attack of the Killer Zucchini

Cooking the Three Dog Bakery Way

2010-02-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Being in the house for several days you get kind of stir crazy... Today I baked for the dogs. Wanted to share the recipe for our canine family members... its easy and fun to cook the Three Dog Bakery Way:

Biscotti Bites

2 1/2 cups of flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 TB canola oil

6 TB honey

2 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla

1/4 cup chopped unsalted peanuts or sunflower seeds

Preheat the over to 350 and grease a baking sheet with nonstick vege spray

Stir together the flour and baking powder in a large bowl and set aside

In a separate bowl whisk together the canola oil and honey until well blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla, stirring to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to form a smooth dough. Mix in the nuts.

Divide the dough in half and form each half into a ball then roll to a log about 4"wide by 12"

Place logs on the baking sheet and bake 14-16 minutes or until golden brown.

Transfer logs to a cutting board and cool 5 minutes.

Slice each log at a 45 degree angle about 1/2 inch thick. Place the slices on the baking sheet and bake for an additional 10 minutes to dry out the biscotti. Transfer to cooling rack and cool completely.

Store in airtight container for up to 1 week (don't worry they won't last that long) or wrap well and freeze for up to 2 months.

Hunkered Down for the Snow

2010-02-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

As you already know we have been hit with a ridiculous amount of snow and today was truly a blizzard. We have made a lot of homemade soup so I wanted to share one of my favorites that I put together for our annual family ski trip (which we are missing this year).

Turkey Vege Soup

1 lb ground turkey

1 can fire roasted tomatoes (do not drain)

1 quart of broth (beef or vege)

1 onion sliced thin

1 package sliced mushrooms

carrots (cut any way you like them)

1 zucchini cut into cubes

2 cloves garlic

small amount of olive oil

any other veges you might like to add

2 bay leaves

thyme to taste

salt and pepper

brown the ground turkey in a small amount of olive oil and in a large soup pot

when brown, add the tomatoes and some of the broth

add the onions and garlic; cook for a few minutes

add all the other ingredients

check to be sure you have enough liquid; if not add some water

cook slowly for about 2 hours

enjoy!!

Super Bowl Hoosier Pie

2010-02-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Go Colts! Hoosier Pie
Adapted from the heirloom recipe at Turkey Creek Lane

2 tbsp. flour
1/4 c. white sugar
1/4 c. dark brown sugar (or, if you ran out of brown sugar like me, sub the remaining with turbinado sugar)

1-2 tbsp. butter

1 egg yolk
1 1/2 c. whole milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp.-ish freshly grated nutmeg (or cinnamon, if preferred)

1 pre-made pie-shell (homemade or store-bought)

1 carton blueberries, for Colts horseshoe (optional)

1. Pre-heat oven to 410 degrees Farenheit. Mix together the first three ingredients and spread on the bottom of the pie crust.
2. Dot the flour & sugar mixture with the butter.
3. Mix together the next four ingredients in a bowl and then pour over the sugar/flour mixture and dotted butter. You may have more wet filling than you need. Fill it nearly to the top. Give the whole thing a few stirs, to incorporate.
4. If desired, use the left over egg white to glaze the crust edge for a pretty shine.
5. Put pie in the oven and bake for 10 minutes at 410 degrees, then turn the oven down and bake for an additional 45 minutes. The pie filling should be bubbly and jiggly, don't pull it out too late or it won't set. My wonky, cold oven added about 13 minutes to the baking time.
6. Let the pie fully set, then use the blueberries to create your decorative horseshoe.
7. Root for the Colts!

New Year's Day meal

2009-12-31T11:31:00.001-08:00

I am soooo excited... this year Stacy and Brian sent us the cookbook from Insalata's and I got a wonderful new all clad soup pot from Greg... so tomorrow it's Papa's Shrimp Bisque for dinner. I'm also making a wonderful Neapolitan Calamari and Shrimp Salad thanks to Giada. It looks terrific and reminds us of our wonderful trip to Amalfi. So I will post pics tomorrow if it turns out well.

New Year's Eve

2009-12-31T11:27:00.000-08:00

I've never been able to get too excited about celebrating the New Year. I guess I'm not so much into the party scene. We've had a few good ones in the neighborhood... one year it was a toga party and another year it was a pajama party... yes we were supposed to come in our PJs. Going out in the neighborhood is pretty good because you don't have to deal with traffic and crazy drivers. But I'm not too much of a drinker and its hard to stay up until midnight when you get up at 5:00 a.m. every day! This year though we have the perfect plan... we are going to a 4:30 movie (It's Complicated) with good friends and then going next door for a special dinner at the Greystone Grill. Not even sure I'll last until midnight but I am so looking forward to the low key evening! Happy New Years to all who read this... Hope yours is as enjoyable as ours will be.

Christmas in Baltimore 2009

2009-12-31T11:11:00.001-08:00

Christmas was very fun this year. Having Gabe home was special but we did miss the rest of the clan... We made an awesome pork loin cooked in 8 cups of kosher salt with spices... it cooked really slowly. After it was done we had to break open the salt casing to get out the roast. It was delicious.
We paired it with a lovely buttery Chardonay, roasted carrots, parsnips, and fingerling potatoes, and a wonderful carmelized roasted onion grantine that was to die for. I hope the pictures do it justice. For dessert we had mini buche du noel and a pear tart that was sooooo good...

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T15:33:00.001-08:00

It's been a great Christmas so far - stockings, presents, movies and soon enough, dinner. As per tradition, we're doing a prime rib roast.

Another tradition in my family is the Christmas Eve meal - cracked dungeness crab, sourdough bread and a good Monterey Jack cheese. Last night we added a few more cheeses to the rotation (Brillat-Savarin, an aged Australian cheddar, and young Spanish Mahon), made fresh fruit salad for dessert and may have enjoyed a super yummy rose Champagne (yes, I'm taking the french approach to pregnancy, in which women don't have to be persecuted for the odd glass of wine they drink).

But the coolest part of the dinner were the two dipping sauces we concocted for the crab (in addition to some melted butter). One was a mayo spiked with Old Bay and the other was a homemade cocktail sauce. The cocktail sauce was so good, I'm going to share it here. The next time you're having some chilled crab or shrimp, make this up from scratch (in a few minutes) and impress the hell out of your friends.

Cocktail Sauce
by Noah, adapted from Joy of Cooking

1/2 c. ketchup
1/4 c. horseradish
1 tsp. jalapeno hot sauce
1 tsp. chipotle hot sauce
zest of one lemon
salt & pepper, to taste

Hanukah and Christmas live side by side

2009-12-19T13:06:00.000-08:00

When I saw Sarah's new ornament picture I was inspired to get out our new ornament for 2009. We picked it up on one of our many trips but I cannot remember where. In case you can't tell Santa is with a Dolphin and in a bathing suit. Anyway this being the Festival of Lights season as well I set up this little photo essay of Hanukah and Christmas living side by side...

More pics of the snow

2009-12-19T13:03:00.001-08:00

The Shopper Stopper Blizzard of 2009

2009-12-19T12:53:00.000-08:00

The snow here is insane. It started at around 11:00 p.m. on Friday and by early morning we had 5 inches. These pictures were taken about 10:00 this morning when Greg
went out to shovel the deck the first time. It is now about 3:00 and we have over 20" of snow and he has shoveled for the third time. The plow guy has come twice so I'm hoping we can get out in the morning to pick Deb up at the airport... if anything is flying. Our dogs got new coats just for the storm so these pictures show them stylin for sure... The green coat is Zeus and the red is Cole. Cassie was probably buried since she is much smaller. Lucky for us the snow is light and fluffy so they can just shake it off when they come in... not too messy. I'm nursing a rotten cold so I'm in by the fire being a couch potato while Greg expends all the energy. Looks like a white Christmas for sure and they are predicting more snow on Friday.

Menu for Hope 6

2009-12-18T10:20:00.001-08:00

Is there anything worse than last minute Christmas shopping? That frenzy to find something, anything for your friends and loved ones. Well here's an option that's easy (you can do it in your PJs on your laptop), inexpensive and most of all, good for the world. Instead of getting Grandma another Snuggie, why not make a donation in her name to the Sixth Annual Menu for Hope? This year's drive benefits the World Food Programme's Purchase for Progress.

Per Chez Pim, the organizer of this massive food blogger event: P4P enables smallholder and low-income farmers to supply food to WFP’s global operation. P4P helps farmers improve farming practices and puts more cash directly into their pockets in return for their crops. This will also help buoy local economy by creating jobs and income locally. We food bloggers understand the importance of buying locally and supporting our local farms, P4P helps do the same for farmers in low income countries around the world. More on P4P at http://www.wfp.org/purchase-progress.

And with each $10 donation, you purchase a raffle ticket for ANY food blogger supplied gift - you can win a multi-course meal at a 2-star Michelin restaurant, you can win all kinds of wines and chocolates, you can win stays in beautiful locations around the world (from Santa Barbara to New England to Italy and everywhere in between). Or dozens of other prizes.

But most of all you know that you made a little difference to some farmer out there who's struggling to get by. So rush on over to the handy, dandy donation form and get going.

And did we mention that this is a nice little tax deduction for your '09 taxes? It's the gift that just keeps on giving.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

This year's ornament.

CHICKENS!

2009-11-27T13:57:00.001-08:00

Hello, Long Weekend! Hello, Minimal Morning Sickness! Hello, Renewed Creative Engery! Hello, Chickens! That's right, there are chickens. Okay, so the cuties pictured here don't live on my urban homestead, which is a total bummer. But they do live on Stacy and Brian's suburban homestead, which we visited last weekend (sidenote - Go Bears! We kept the Axe!). And these are their babies. Above is, I think, Panama Red.
This is Red and either Chicken Hawk, Chica or Cocoa, enjoying some free time out in the yard.
How cute are they? And only six months old. Hopefully there will be eggs soon, but Stacy and Brian might have to wait until the warmer weather this spring. When they start laying, they'll produce an egg every other day or so. A dozen fresh eggs a week. How yummy does that sound?
Red, roosting.
And this is the gorgeous coop that Brian built in their backyard. A month or so back he tore out their entire (beautiful) backyard, because Brian gets bored with things after a while. We saw the rough versions of the beds he's building in the garden now and I can already tell they're going to be even more spectacular. Damn him and his handy/arty-ness. Why can't my brain function like this? And since it can't, how do you think I can bribe him to come down and do something like this for us in LA?

A Creamy Dish for Everyone... Even the Lactose Intolerant

2009-10-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

Autumn is a time for fun outdoors... unfortunately while having some of that fun I got Lyme's disease. So this weekend I spent a good bit of it in bed resting and watching the food network. I found this recipe on public TV actually on a program called Everyday Food. It appealed to me not only because I love Porcini mushrooms, but it had a creamy texture without the cream! "Perfect for those who can't handle the cooked cream," I said... So here it is folks... we made it tonight and it was most yummy...

Creamy Orzo with Porcini

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, rinsed in cold water

2 TB unsalted butter

1 small onion, chopped

coarse salt and ground pepper

1 1/2 cups orzo

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

3 TB chopped Italian parsley

1. Place mushrooms in a bowl with 2 cups of warm water for about 20 - 30 minutes.

2. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, cook, stirring occasionally until softened about 5 minutes.

3. Season generously with salt and pepper. Add orzo; cook stirring often, until orzo is golden brown and fragrant; about 5 minutes.

4. Add porcini, reserved liquid (strain it though so you don't get any grit) and another 2 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer stirring often until orzo has absorbed most liquid and is creamy (15-20 minutes).

5. Put in a lovely bowl and stir in the parmesan

6. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle parsley all over on top.

Picnic in the Park

2009-09-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

This post is overdue, which seems to be a trend for me lately. I forgot that a regular job is kind of a time suck. But hey, this week I'm home on script so maybe we'll get some more action here at Killer Zucchini.

When I was up in the Bay Area a few weekends back, we took a trip to the new Academy of Sciences. Located in Golden Gate Park, we started off the day with a picnic in Marx Meadow with food we picked up at the Marin Farmers Market that morning.
The featured picnic foods were: a fresh baguette, Bellweather Farms cheeses, an awesome container of duck rillettes, saucisson, smoked salmon, peaches, plums, orange raspberries, figs, dates and olives. We washed it all down with a good Zin and some sparkling water. I think the duck rillettes were my favorite. How can you go wrong with shredded duck and duck fat?

Stacy, Noah and Robin (Noah's mom aka Agile Lady) were waiting for me to finish taking pics so they could eat already. This one makes me giggle - it looks like the wine bottle is up Noah's nose.
This little guy was at the picnic, too. He was grubbing on the bits and pieces of fruit we tossed to him. I think he makes a good living being adorable to picnickers.

Outside the Academy of Sciences.

When I was a kid, the A of S was my absolute favorite place to be. I think there was a time when I made my parents take me at least once a week. Like many children who grew up in the Bay Area in the 1980s, I had this weird obsession with the two-headed snake they had in their reptile room. It was awesome. I was sad to learn he (they?) had died, but they did have him preserved in a jar down in the Lower Level aquarium. There was also the alligator pit (complete with the old seahorse railing), a version of the touch pool (not nearly as good as the old one) and a nice big anaconda (although I felt like they could have had 75% more snakes overall).

They still had a bunch of the dioramas from the Natural History Museum, too. We didn't get there in time to get Planetarium tickets and we weren't into waiting in the long line for the Rain Forest. I was pretty happy with all the changes. And the building looked beautiful.I especially loved the living roof and all the domes. I told Noah we're so doing this when we buy a house. It's like nature and sci-fi had a baby.

Reliving your youth? Definitely a fun way to spend the day.

Shameless Self Promotion

2009-09-23T10:50:00.001-07:00

I think you should all watch the best new show of the year tonight. And I'm not saying that just because I write for it.

So sit down, mix yourself a gin rickey and enjoy!

A Lovely Way to End the Summer

2009-09-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those truly beautiful end of summer days in Baltimore... high in the 70s and no humidity. Just a harbinger of fall sent to tease us before the hot doldrums of September set in.

Last weekend I was visiting with the Kucserka clan in San Anselmo (see Sarah's blog from last week) and I came across this recipe in Gretchen's Gourmet magazine and knew it would be a winner because it is South Beach compliant, Weight Watchers friendly and just plain appealing.

So tonight we had our very own Mediterranean dinner poolside and this was a total winner. Enjoy.

Mediterranean Grilled Lamb Steaks (serves 4)
from Gourmet April 2009

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, smashed

1 Turkish bay leaf, 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, 2 (3x1") strips of orange zest

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1 14 oz. can diced fire roasted tomatoes

1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts, drained and quartered

1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, coarsely chopped

2 lbs boneless top round lamb roast

In 2 tbsp of oil, cook garlic, bay leaf, fennel seeds, and zest, stirring until fennel seeds are golden about 1 minute.

Add onion and cook stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium and add tomatoes with their juice, artichokes, and olives and cook until vegetables are tender 5-8 min. Discard zest and bay leaf

Heat grill. Cut lamb across the grain into 4 1" thick steaks and brush both sides of steaks with remaining 2 Tb of oil and season with salt and pepper

Grill lamb, turning once about 10 minutes (we needed more because our steaks were thick) for medium rare. Transfer to cutting board and slice into thin slices.

Spoon tomato mixture onto plates and top with slices of lamb

We served this tasty dish with grilled baby carrots done with salt, pepper, and a little olive oil.

Yummmm...

The Life Aquatic

2009-09-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

For my birthday I'm giving you all a little Moments of Rest-esque video from our trip to the California Academy of Sciences this weekend. Note: It's more Zen if you turn off the sound. Additional note: If you are Veronica, you definitely do not want to watch this. Two words: sea creatures.

Nice Way To Spend A Sunday Morning

2009-09-07T22:12:00.001-07:00

Noah and I were up north this weekend - visiting my family, attending a wedding, hanging with Noah's mom who was in from Baltimore and celebrating my birthday a few days early. As you can imagine, the schedule was fairly packed. But Sunday morning we got to do one of my favorite things - take a trip to the Marin Farmer's Market at the Civic Center. And this isn't some skimpy market. There are rows and rows of farm stalls, food stalls, petting zoos and even a bouncy castle or two. Heaven.
There's no better time to check out the bounty at the market than early September. Fruit like crazy, the beginnings of fall veggies and all kinds of meats, fishes and cheeses. Well, sadly not as much cheese this weekend as I had hoped for, as both the Andante guy and the Pug's Leap folks were MIA for the holiday. Damn. Still, there was plenty of other good stuff to enjoy.
Like these gorgeous berries. We brought a box of the fiery orange raspberries to our picnic in Golden Gate Park. They were sooo good. And I'm not at all a raspberry person. Usually they're too mushy and slightly fermented tasting for me (yes, even the really great, fancy, expensive ones), but these were great. They had an almost citrusy tang to them.
Brian picked up some fantastic tuna from the fish folks at Santa Rosa Seafood, which he whipped up for us at my birthday dinner at Insalata's. I must say, it's pretty nice having a chef in the family. I meant to get a few of the SRS oysters, but was rushed out of the market before I had a chance. Next time.
Of course, we had to grab some stone fruits as well - flavor king plums, flavor grenade pluots and some O'Henry peaches. We cut them up and had them along with dates (also acquired at the market) for our picnic dessert.
Stacy getting fresh with a plum.
Stone fruit free samples. I had to take this one three or four times because people kept popping in and blocking the shot as they reached for their taste.
I just liked this sign. Doesn't it make you smile?
One of the food stalls at the market is a wood-fire pizza oven. We always get their fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and egg breakfast pizza. Apparently you can hire them to do parties in Marin. If I lived there, they would be catering my birthday party. I guess dinner at Church & State is an acceptable substitute.
It was a nice time at the market - not too crowded, not too hot and lots and lots of deliciousness. Stay tuned for details of the picnic in GGP and the trip to the Academy of Sciences. I've got two words to tease it... duck rillettes.

Happy Anniversary! Let's Celebrate with Cocktail Hour.

2009-08-24T12:11:00.001-07:00

I know, it's been waaaay too long. I just started up on a new show (a month earlier than expected) and I've been playing catch-up with my everyday, non-work life ever since. And today's post is hardly a good make up for my lack of attention. But I just read this cocktail recipe from the sommelier at Drago Centro, Michael Shearin and I really want it. Right now. At just barely past noon on a Monday.

But it's Noah and my anniversary (3 years ago, can you believe it?) and dammit I think I should get a mid-day drink. Not sure what my boss would think, so...

Maybe I'll just have to stick to the cookies, pastries, candies and tarts that have just been delivered as a "congratulations on the first day of production" treat.

Fumo e Fuoco
Recipe adapted from Michael Shearin, originally from TastingTable.com
Makes 1 drink

¼ Thai Bird's Eye chile pepper
¼ ounce honey syrup (1 part honey dissolved in 1 part hot water and cooled)
2 ounces Dewar's 12-year-old Scotch Whisky
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
Ice

In a cocktail shaker, muddle the chile with the honey syrup (go easy: more muddling means more heat). Add the Scotch Whisky and lemon juice, and ﬁll the shaker with ice. Stir until thoroughly chilled, strain the cocktail into an ice-ﬁlled rocks glass and serve.

THE Attack of the Killer Zucchini

2009-08-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

What happens when you can't see under the zucchini plants? These two behemoths "went to the mattresses" to avoid detection and picking. While cleaning-up the garden and re-staking the tomatoes, I discovered them hiding under the massive leaves of my two zucchini plants.

Yes, I only planted 2 zucchini and now have so much of the yummy veggie that I had to place a call to all my friends to find new recipes that freeze well and task good.

So if you also find yourself with far too many zucchini plants and not enough friends to give them away to, let me suggest one of the following recipes. Properly stored, you can enjoy the fruits of your labors well into winter (and for those of us who do not live in sunny CA, that's a real treat!).

PINEAPPLE ZUCCHINI BREAD

3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 8oz can crushed pineapple,drained
3 cups flour,unsifted 2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp.baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon 1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup raisins,optional

1. Beat eggs, add oil, sugar and vanilla; beat mixture until light and foamy.
2. Stir in zucchini and pineapple.
3. Combine flour, soda, salt baking powder, cinnamon, nuts and raisins.
4. Stir gently into zucchini mixture.
5. Pour batter into a greaed and floured 9x5 loaf pan.
6. Bake 350( for 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pans.

CHERRY ZUCCHINI BREAD

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
2 cups flour
2 tsp.baking powder
1 tsp.cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 cup shredded unpeeled zucchini 2/3 cups dried tart cherries
1 Tbsp. grated lemon peel

1. Put eggs in large mixing bowl. Beat with electric mixer on med.speed 3 to 4 minutes or until eggs are thick and lemon colored.
2. Add sugar, oil, lemon juice and water, mix well.
3. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
4. Add flour mixture to egg mixture; mix well.
5. Stir in zucchini, cherries and lemon peel.
6. Grease and flour bottom of 8-/2 x 4-1/2" loaf pan.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan.
8. Bake in preheated 350( oven 55 to 65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
9. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes.
10. Remove from pan. Let cool completely.
11. Wrap in plastic and store in refrigerator or Freeze.

ZUCCHINI QUICHE

4 small zucchini
1 cup & 1 Tablespoon bisquick
8 Tablespoons grated parm. cheese
2 Tablespoons milk
2 Tablespoons oil{liquid}
1 dash pepper
1/2 cup onion,chopped
4 eggs,slightly beaten
1/4teaspoon garlic powder {I use more}
2 tablespoons parsley flakes

Mix together all ingredients.
Pour into greased 9 x 13 x 2" pan.
Bake 350( for 1/2 hour or until light brown.

Here is one for Zucchini Casserole this is a new one for me too. A friend just gave this one to me,she said it is really good.

ZUCCHINI CASSEROLE

3 cups cornbread stuffing
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/2 cup sour cream
2 small zucchini, shredded
2 yellow squash, shredded
1/4 cup carrots ,shredded
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup{reg. or 98% free}

Stir stuffing and butter in large bowl.
Reserve 1/2 cup of stuffing mixture
Spoon remaining into a 2 quart shallow baking dish.
Stir soup, sour cream, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots and cheese into a med. bowl.
Spread the mixture over the stuffing mixture and sprinkle with the reserve stuffing mixture.
Bake at 350( for 40 minutes or until hot.

You can also use the zucchinis like an eggplant Make a parmigana instead of eggplant use the zucchini in its place or try making lasagna with it too.

And One last tasty choice:

CHOCO-ZUCCHINI CUPCAKES:

BATTER:
2 cups shredded zucchini (8 oz)
3 eggs OR 3/4 cup egg substitute
2 cup granulated sugar OR 1.5 cups Splenda
3/4 cups cooking oil OR 3/4 cups applesauce
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup milk chocolate pieces (optional)

FROSTING:
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup softened butter
1 Tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

PREPARATION:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line 24 2.5 inch muffin cups with paper bake-cups or lightly coat with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Stir together zucchini, eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla.
3. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and chocolate chips (if using)
4. Stir to combine
5. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling each cup half full.
6. Bake about 25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in pan on wire wrack for 5 minutes, remove cups from pan and cool completely

Frosting Prep:

1. Beat 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup softened butter, 1 Tbsp milk and 1/2 tsp. vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.
2. Gradually add 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar, beating until combined.
3. If necessary, stir in 1 to 2 teaspoons additional milk until desired consistency

I eliminated the chocolate chips and did not frost the cupcakes and they still were wonderful. They're great with coffee, as a desert with vanilla ice cream, or in the morning as a snack. If you use the alternatives of egg substitute, applesauce, and Splenda they're also low calorie and low points.

They freeze well too!

A Birthday Dinner to Remember

2009-08-03T19:46:00.001-07:00

Stacy's birthday was a few weeks back and I've been totally slacking on putting up these pictures and this post. Blame it on the wildly hectic new job that's got me staying past 9pm twice a week. And the multiple weddings. And the spousal birthdays. And general laziness. But finally here it is... prepare to be gastronomically taunted.
Brian put together the entire 40+ person dinner - the menu, the cooking, the decorating, all of it. Well, he had some help on the cooking end, "borrowing" several chef friends who came in and helped him assemble a (seriously) multi-course meal in Stacy & Brian's tiny kitchen. The dinner was served at a long table (well several tables strung together) in a manner inspired by my and Noah's rehearsal dinner.
It was a beautiful night in Fairfax - sunny early on with some clouds and very, very light drizzle later in the evening. The moisture in the air even brought an auspicious rainbow along with it. So pretty!
The birthday girl herself, in the middle of their small but lush backyard vegetable garden.
This was one of the entrees, an amazing slow roasted pork loin. And the next day it made an even more amazing pork sandwich. Or so I was told, as someone may have put it all in his sandwich and left none for his poor, hungry wife.
This is the remnants of what was probably my favorite course - a black and white risotto. I believe it was a parmesan risotto with artichokes and sausage, with a black squid ink risotto "crust". I am salivating at the memory.
The non-vegetarian friendly ravioli.
The vegetarian friendly ravioli. I'm trying to remember what was inside...maybe beet greens & beets & ricotta? I don't think I got to this course.
The table before everyone sat down.
A view of Stacy & Brian's jam-packed garden. They've got enough tomato plants to keep all the folks who sign up for Patchwork Farms in tomatoes for the rest of the summer.
A delicious spinach, bacon and egg salad.
Probably my third favorite course - a variety of heirloom tomatoes and some seriously good burrata.
An heriloom bean, beet and mushroom salad with arugula. Another winning combination.
My second favorite dish, the homemade ceviche. It went fast, hence the less than awesome photo.
Roasted potatoes.
One of my 4 platefuls of food. I believe I am still running off the weight I gained that weekend.
A crappy picture of the traditional Kucserka family birthday dessert - Princess Cake. It's a marzipan shell over a white cake with cream and raspberries. I don't think there's a better cake in the whole world.
Mom's strawberry rhubarb pie. My favorite pie in the world. Mom was going to do an apple pie, but my sad face (I'd just found out I would be starting work unexpectedly that Monday and had to bail on the yearly family trip to Packer Lake at the last minute) made her reconsider her pie choice. I'm so glad you did, Mom!
The last dessert of the night, a "Blueberry Cheesecake in a Jar". Brian invented this one and according to those who could eat it without a lactose attack, it was awesome.

Overall a one in a lifetime, delicious multi-course meal prepared by (in my humble opinion) the best chefs in town. There were even a few sides that I think I missed, not to mention the pre-dinner snacks: cheese, meats, homemade preserved tuna poached in oil and lots of garden veggies to nibble on.

Noah's up in Marin for a few days again, going to concert with his brother and staying with my fam. There's a bbq at Stacy and Brian's tonight and I am super jealous. My takeout chicken just doesn't compare.

Patchwork Farms - A CSA-Style Enterprise in Marin

2009-08-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Stacy and Brian are starting a new endeavor up in Marin, a CSA-like project called Patchwork Farms that sounds absolutely fantastic.

The idea is simple - people in the greater Ross Valley area can sign up to barter and trade their abundance of fruits and veggies with other neighbors in the area. All the information is available on their website (linked above).

If you're up in Marin, sign up today!

More Southern Comfort - NOLA Adventures

2009-07-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

You all saw round one of Mom & Dad's Louisiana vacation last month. Well, a few days ago, Dad got around to sending me Part Two of the photos (there are going to be at least three parts, I'm told). But this is really the most exciting set, because these pictures from New Orleans are ALL ABOUT FOOD!

As described to me, above is a half oyster po-boy from the Acme Oyster House. I'm fairly sure my dad was joking when he said, "As you can see we dined light that day as we were going to Upperline that evening."

I'm sure this beauty of a dish needs no explanation, though it does seem like something you're more likely to see on the grounds at Wimbledon (sidenote: Yay, Rog! 15!!!!) than at Brennan's, the famous New Orleans restaurant.

Okay, how great is this pre-meal treat? Roasted garlic and a baguette with a glass of red at Upperline in the Garden District. Again, quoting Dad, "This one of our favorite NOLA restaurants."

And here's a photo of the elusive Dad. Drinking a glass of wine. Definitely related to me.

BANANAS FOSTER!!! I realized this past Fourth of July that I enjoy all things that are either a) on fire or b) exploding. BF totally lives up to that.

More from the dinner at Upperline. These mega-shrimp on top of fried green tomatoes are making me very, very hungry. I wonder if they deliver to LA?

The shrimp and crab etouffee at Adolpho's. Yuuurm. That's the sound of "yum" when the drool makes you trip over the word.

Okay, it's outside of New Orleans, but my love of all things college sports necessitated the inclusion of the above photo. Again, you know I'm related to my father as his explanation of the picture is, "self explanatory".

Mas oysters, this time raw, from Acme.

This po-boy shop was located two blocks from the apartment my parents rented. And while I love me some Gumbo Pot at the 3rd & Fairfax farmers market, I have a sneaking suspicion that this place would kick its butt. I mean look:

'Nuff said.

Thanks for keeping us hungry, Mom & Pops.

And look for more exciting family food related photos coming out of sister Stacy's 30th birthday bash this weekend...

25 Things I Love About LA #5 - TACOS!!!

2009-06-28T16:26:00.001-07:00

I'm fairly certain it's an unoriginal comparison, but tacos are to Los Angeles what pizza is to NYC and kebabs are to London. In LA, you'll find a taco stand/truck/shop on every corner. And everybody has their "local". Mine is Cactus Tacos (#1, the original Hollywood outpost) at Vine and Romaine.
It's a small operation, what I would refer to as a taco shack - in the best possible way. But despite the tiny size (and kitchen), they put out a huge menu. They offer all the standards - tacos, burritos, tortas and other things like salads and breakfast dishes. I also noted a curious recent addition of french fries, which I'm fairly certain are for the late night, post-bar crowd.

To create many variations on these dishes, they offer nearly a dozen meats, including: carnitas, pollo, cabeza (cow's head), tinga (a smoky shredded chicken), lengua (tongue, which is awesome), carne asada and my all time favorite pastor. Pastor is BBQ'd pork, as opposed to carnitas, which is fried pork. And in my humble opinion, Cactus' is the best in LA.
You order at the window, wait a few minutes until it's all put together and then grab a seat at one of the nine picnic tables scattered around. Dining al fresco is the perfect way to eat these hand-sized treats. How else are you going to hear all the neighborhood gossip, gawk at the fine ladies and gents and get a tan?

Three tacos plus a soda come to a whopping $5. It's not only one of the tastiest lunches in town, it's one of the cheapest as well.

Southern Comfort

2009-06-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day!

Mom and Dad (aka Gretchen & Chuck) were down in Louisiana last week for the wedding celebrations of our family friend Sam and his wife Olivia. The festivities took place in New Iberia, which is in the southwestern part of the state. Above is the gorgeous B&B my parents stayed at in New Iberia.
And being my parents, they of course went to the weekly New Iberia farmers market. I love this woman's farmstand! My parents said she was selling homemade pickled foods (eggs, beans, okra, etc...) as well as jams, jellies and preserves. Given my recent jam obsession (see the bowl of cherries currently macerating in my kitchen), this is giving me ideas for future second career opportunities.
This is the cool main street area of New Iberia. I love the old school theater!
And some of the beautiful local architecture.
Here is the entire Cal crew (Sam's family is among the half dozen or so family's that we've been going to Cal football games with since 1984) enjoying a tasty luncheon at the Lafayette Cajun Restaurant.
Some Cajun shrimp. And check out that coffee mug - "Simply Cajun". Sweet!
A seafood etouffee - a great excuse to not worry so much about calorie counting when visiting the area and taking in their fantastic food traditions. Isn't it a travesty that I've never been to Louisiana?! There's talk of a family trip there for Jazz Fest to rectify said appalling truth.

Mom and Dad will try and put up their own post, detailing all the eats and sights of New Orleans, where they spent several days with Aunt Lise and Uncle Kevin after the wedding party. If I can't talk them through it, I'll put it all up myself. Can't wait for those photos.

Making Jam. Or How I Got Over My Fear of Canning...

2009-06-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

There is always something that drives fear deep into the heart of any home chef. Maybe it's breadmaking or egg white beating or raw meat handling. Or maybe those things don't seem bad at all, maybe what really wakes you up at 3 AM in a full sweat is the idea of canning stuff. Processing it. Making sure you don't give yourself (or someone you love) botulism. Trying not to blind yourself with exploding glass jars in pans of boiling water. Ack!

Or maybe that's just me. Or should I say, that was me, until this past weekend. That's when I finally stood up to my fears and CANNED SOME FREAKIN' JAM! And not just any jam, friends, the best fruit jam of all - the humble apricot.
I mean, jeez, aren't these some beautiful apricots? They're Robata's, which I find (prepare for blasphemy) superior to Blenheims. They're a little bigger, a little firmer and really taste of apricot to me. Not that I'd turn up my nose at a Blenheim. I am an apricot slut like that.

I haven't always been cuckoo for apricot jam - that I blame on Abby and the family trip to France she took me on a several years ago. For breakfast most mornings we'd have a croissant or baguette hunk slathered in delicious French butter and topped with Bonne Maman apricot preserves. It was, in a word, transcendent.

Last year, Mom & Stace put up some of their own apricot jam, with the apricots off of their home trees. And me, the ever competitive one, was like, "Uh, screw that, I can can too." And then I waited until last weekend to take the plunge. I'm competitive and procrastinator-ish, from time to time.

And here's what I discovered - canning shit is EASY. Making jam is EASY. Why the hell hadn't I been doing this all along?! And when you can stuff, people think you're awesome. There wasn't even the matter of exploding jars to worry about, because as I learned here and here you can sterilize the damn things in the oven. I love the internet. And I hate the fact that I now have to drive all the way back to Surfas in Culver City to return the (too large anyway) canning pot-cha-macallit.

All the canning on Sunday made me feel so... fulfilled. So I decided to do it again the next day (which carried into today, because I was lazy and because it doesn't hurt to macerate your fruit for a few extra hours). This time it was with some Bing cherries from the HFM.
The above picture really doesn't do the hot foaming pan of cherry goodness justice. Trying to get a picture when cherries are steaming up a storm = kinda hard. I riffed on a not-recipe from David Lebovitz and he's right. You really don't need a recipe. Just some concepts to kinda, sorta follow as you see fit. For instance, I didn't chop up any cherries beforehand, just mashed them a bit during cooking with the potato masher. I did this with the apricots, too. And I gotta say, it's a great way to get a nice, meaty (fruity?) texture to your jams.

Also, I just guessed when it came to sugar, rather than cooking down the fruit first, then measuring it out and then putting in an equal amount of sugar. I had about 4 cups of cherries. I figured they'd cook down to 2 (it was actually 2 1/2). I don't like crazy sugary jam - I put in way less than most recipes called for. So I went with 1 1/4 c. of sugar. I probably could have done just a cup.
Here are some of the finished products. What were the total yields? Well 4 lbs of apricots made 7 half pint jars of preserves. 2 lbs of cherries made 2 1/2 jars of preserves. Aren't they lovely?
Of course, I couldn't wait to use them. So for lunch today I went old school (or maybe pre-school) and made an open-faced PB&J with still warm cherry jam. Best meal all week. Confiture d'Abricot aux Amandes aka Apricot & Almond (well, technically, Apricot Kernel) Jam
from Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini

- 1.2 kg ripe apricots (**I used 4 lbs)
- 1 kg sugar (**I used only 750 grams or so)

Yields : 5 to 6 jars (the Bonne Maman kind, which holds 370g of jam), recipe can be doubled or halved. (**Mine yielded 7 pint jars of the Ball variety).

Rinse, scrub if necessary, and dry the apricots. Slice them in two, remove the stone, and cut the flesh in smallish pieces. Reserve the stones.

Weigh the amount of apricot flesh you get. Transfer the apricots to a large pan, and combine with the same weight of sugar as of fruit. If you used 1.2 kg of apricots, you should have about 1 kg of apricot flesh, but it's best to weigh it to make sure and adjust the amount of sugar.

Crack about 18 of the apricot stones open with a nutcracker (see important note), to get the almonds inside. Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan, remove from heat, and put in the almonds. Let rest for about thirty seconds (this process is called "blanching"), then transfer to a colander and rinse under cold water. The papery skin of the almonds will then slip off easily. Reserve the peeled almonds and discard the rest.

Wash the glass jars and their lids carefully, then soak them in boiling water for 10 minutes, and set them out to dry upside down on a clean kitchen towel.

Put a saucer in the freezer. Put the pan over medium heat, until the apricots have started to melt and produce juice, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon. Turn the heat up, and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook for about 20 to 25 minutes, keeping it at a gentle boil and stirring occasionally.

Keep a close eye on it : at first the mixture will almost double in volume, producing a light orange, thick foam (hence the necessity of a large pan). After a while it will reduce back down, and bubble quietly while taking on an amber, dark orange color. About 15 minutes into the cooking, add in the peeled almonds.

Keep stirring until it feels like the mixture is thickening slightly. Although it is subtle, you'll see the change when you lift the wooden spoon and look closely at the drops dripping from it : they'll get thicker and will drip down slightly slower. Remove the saucer from the freezer, put a drop of jam on it and tilt the saucer to see if the jam is set. If not, let it boil a bit more before testing again.

Remove the foam from the surface with a slotted spoon to have a clearer jam (reserve the foam, it's delicious, as a topping on yogurt for instance), but that's optional in my opinion.

Pour the jam in the prepared jars until they are full (watch out, jam will be extremely hot) using gloves and a funnel if you have one. Wipe carefully if there was any spillage and close the lids tightly. Let cool to room temperature upside-down on the counter, then store in a cool and dark place for a few months.

Important note : this apricot jam recipe uses the almonds inside the stones. This gives the jam a particularly good flavor, and makes for a few lovely crunchy bites per jar. However, the almonds inside apricot stones, like bitter almonds, contain hydrocyanic acid. The human body has no problem dealing with it if ingested in small doses, but 30 to 50 almonds eaten in a short amount of time can kill an adult! It's perfectly safe to include a few in a jar of jam, but just keep the warning in mind.

Oyster-gasm!!!

2009-06-15T16:09:00.001-07:00

This weekend there were oysters. Lots of oysters. One dozen on Saturday evening, courtesy of the Fish King in Glendale. One dozen Sunday evening courtesy of the Carlsbad Aquafarm stand at the Hollywood Farmers Market.
We ate the Saturday batch (Hama Hamas and Fanny Bays) with the above wine - a killer Viogner we picked up at Rideau when we were wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley three weekends ago (wine tasting then Kings of Leon at the SB Bowl, are you jealous?). Sunday's Luna oysters were washed down with a few glasses of Saison Dupont.
Noah not only did all the shucking both nights, but Saturday he put together the entire gorgeous platter and made the mignonette. I love that man. He also fancies hot sauce on his lil' guys.
As you can see, we really had to force ourselves to get all 24 bivalves down. Mmmm, bivalves.

Summer Time and the Grillin's Easy

2009-06-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

Smell that? That amazing blend of beef, char and hops? That, my friend, is summer grillin'. You know, when you pull out the BBQ, rustle up some meaty goodness (because in Grilltown, we're all red meat eating cowboys) and crack open an icy cold beer. And the time for grillin'? She has arrived.

Sure, I live in LA, where you can pretty much grill 325 days a year. (The other 40? Uh, you're out of town. Duh.) But even here, there's something special about summer barbecuing. So when we made these kick ass burgers on Monday, it really and truly felt like summer had arrived.

Even if the weather 'round these here parts isn't exactly co-operating. Um, November? Any interest in trading your 80 degree days for June's high 60s? Thanks.

I think I'll call these Western Burgers, and not just cause I'm feeling so very cowgirly right now. I promise, you take one bite of this juicy, spicy goodness and you'll feel like you're way out West too. Even if you're stuck at your house in Newark. C'mon, get out the grill and live a little. It's summer, and it isn't gonna last forever.

Western Burgers
by Sarah

1 lb beef (I used 92/8 and you can definitely want to go lean beef with these as the bacon adds back fat and juicy goodness)
3 slices bacon, diced
2 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, diced
1 tbsp worchestershire sauce
salt, to taste (I used uncured bacon, so I went w/ 1-ish tsp)
garnishes (see below for suggestions)

1. Heat grill nice and high.
2. Combine above ingredients. Divide into four patties of roughly the same size.
3. Grill for 3-4 minutes each side for a good medium rare. If you're squeamish about the bacon, you'll definitely want to go medium rare or pre-cook the bacon. We went just this side of rare and are still alive and kickin'.
4. If using a harder cheese, add it on in the last 1-2 minutes of grill time. On the second side.
5. Remove from heat. Add buns (if desired). Garnish to your liking.
6. Pop a beer, turn up the music and enjoy.

Garnishes - grilled buns (sourdough or kaiser), grilled onion, beefsteak tomato, lettuce, muenster cheese (Noah), Cowgirl Creamery's St. Pat's cheese (Sarah), mustard

Don't Hate Because My Dip Is Awesome

2009-05-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you're struck with an idea to make something and it turns out...meh (see tonight's attempt at Boho's farro salad). And sometimes...you kill it. Like serious, murder, kill. That's the deal with this dip.

Dip's not something I usually make, unless we're having a party. But tonight (due in small part to said meh farro dish), it seemed like having a little somethin'-somethin' to start off the meal was a good idea. And my ass really did not need another cheese plate, as much as it may have wanted one. So I'm at lunch with Noah and we come up with the idea of a dip - the better to use up the shit ton of leftover crackers from Craig & Sharra's baby shower.

Lately, my go-to dip has been this one. And this one also got cleaned out at the baby shower. But tonight I wanted to make a dip with a) the leftover ricotta I have that's about to go south, b) ingredients that could be found already in my house, and c) that didn't require fatty chips or bread to make it work (again, the crackers REALLY need to get eaten).

That's where the internet and my general awesome met at the intersection of Brilliant Idea and made this dip. And because of it, I encourage each and every one of you to go look in your fridge, see what's dip worthy, stick it in a Quisinart (or should I say Quisin♥rt) and rock your own snack poetry. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Most Awesome Ricotta & Sun Dried Tomato Dip In the Universe
by Sarah (with an assist from Rose Reisman from Light Vegetarian & the Big Oven website)

3/4 c. ricotta
4-5 healthy scoops of sun dried tomatoes in oil
1 tsp. of oil from sun dried tomatoes (or olive oil)
10 basil leaves
1 tbsp. pine nuts
2 tbsp. parmesan cheese, grated
a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar
salt, to taste

Stick everything in a Cuisin♥rt and pulse to desired consistency. Serve with water, rice or whole grain crackers. Or a baguette, if you insist.

Squash Blossom Pizza? Hello, Summer!

2009-05-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tell me this doesn't look like a delicious late May dinner:

Even with the mediocre point & shoot picture quality, just looking at this pizza makes me want another slice.

This spring has really been a squash blossom discovery for me. Not just your typical fried squash blossoms (I had some great ones at Ford's Filling Station earlier this month before interviewing for the awesome new job Veronica and I landed). I had some in a light pasta dish, some in a risotto (wow, heavenly) and have spied them on pizza/flatbread menus all over town.

And so when I saw them at the market on Sunday, I figured, "How hard could a squash blossom pizza be?" And, for once, the answer was, "Not very hard." And thanks to a pre-made whole wheat pizza dough from TJs, the leftover mini-squashes from our Memorial Day bbq at Abby's and some cherry tomatoes, it actually seemed pretty freaking healthy. Especially when served with a crazy simple veggie sautee using the other bbq leftovers (The key to good sauteed veg? Lemon juice squeezed on after cooking).

Dare I say I've found a new vegetable lover? Sorry, beets, but your season is over.

Squash Blossom Pizza
by Sarah

1 Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough (or homemade dough for one 12-14" pizza)
12-24 squash blossoms (I bought 60¢ worth and used them all)
10 or so mini-squashes, thinly sliced OR 1 zucchini, thinly sliced
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 c. ricotta cheese (can be part skim or whole)
1/4 c. mozzarella (fresh is ideal, but I didn't have it and used pre-shredded without an issue)
freshly chopped basil
olive oil
dried basil & oregano
red pepper flakes

1. Preheat oven to the highest possible setting (about 550 farenheit on conventional kitchen ovens).
2. Toss, stretch or roll out your dough, to your preference. The thinner the better with this one. Then lightly sprinkle with olive oil (1 tsp or so) and rub oil into crust. Sprinkle dried basil, oregano and pepper flakes to your liking on crust.
3. THIS IS THE SECRET: Put your crust in the oven (either directly on a pizza stone or on a pizza sheet) and bake for 6-8 minutes. You want a decent brown-ness to the dough. This will keep it from getting too mushy, something the ricotta might do to your crust. I do this with all of our doughs when we cook pizza and it makes a HUGE difference. Gives a slightly more Neapolitan crunchiness to the crust, which I favor.
4. Remove dough from the oven and put on the toppings in whichever order you see fit (leave the squash blossoms and basil for later, though). I made a thin layer of the ricotta, then put on the thinly sliced mini-squashed and halved cherry tomatoes. *It's important to put the cherry tomatoes with the cut end facing UP. This way they won't sog-up your nice and crispy crust. Then I sprinkled the entire pizza with a small handful of the mozzarella. I think you could also do the veg first, then dollops of ricotta and spots of fresh mozzarella. It's pizza, you really can't fuck it up.
5. Put the pizza back in the oven and cook for 10 minutes.
6. Remove pizza again and put the squash blossoms on top. Slide back in the oven and cook for 5 more minutes.
7. Remove pizza and sprinkle with basil. Purple basil adds a colorful punch to the dish.
8. Enjoy pizza while watching the season finale of SOUTHLAND. Which totally kicked ass, by the way.

Community Gardening

2009-05-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

You guys might think that Noah and I are fairly serious urban gardeners. But we're nothing compared to my parents and Stacy and Brian. Not only do both couples have their own (large) home gardens, but they share a community garden plot as well.
Located at the Robson-Harrington House, a public park in San Anselmo, there are about thirty individual plots that can be used for a nominal fee by any resident of San Anselmo. The waiting list is long, but my dad and Brian got their first plot a few years back and last year upgraded to a larger, sunnier spot. These top two pics are from our family friend Caterina's garden. Beautiful blooms!
The plot houses a variety of fruits, vegetables, flowers and trees. The guys do the main gardening, and lemme tell you, they get quite a haul.
You can see tomato trellises mixed in with roses and California poppies. It's really stunning.
This above picture shows some of the many, many tomato cages (I think there are over forty plants) as well as what I think is the climbing fence for pole beans and cucumbers and stuff.
San Anselmo has a great micro-climate. They can get fog in the mornings and hit the 90s by mid-day. You can grow anything from the tropical flowers above to most produce, berries and fruit trees like figs, apricots and apples. I am trying to convince the fam to start growing grapes for wine. I know it's only a matter of time before they give in.
This Tiki was salvaged by my dad from the plot of a former gardener. Nice looking guy to keep you company while you work.
These strawberry plants survived multiple transplants, from the original garden to the new garden to a sunnier spot in the new garden.
And when you just wanna kick back and read a book amidst all the beauty, well they've got that covered, too.
Man, just looking at these pictures is making me jealous. Can't wait to see how everything's growing when we head up for Stacy's 30th birthday in July.

The Perfect Strawberry

2009-05-01T23:00:00.001-07:00

This is going to be the year that we actually succeed in growing strawberries, dammit. As evidence, I present the first strawberry of the year, in all its juicy, red perfection:

You know how nothing tastes better than something picked and eaten directly from your home garden? I think the fragile strawberry is the epitome of that concept. I'd been watching this lil' guy ripen for ten days or so. Every day I said, "Not quite yet...". Until yesterday. It was just before lunch and I walked out to check the garden and Mr. Strawberry was just sitting there, plump and shining, saying, "Eat me." And so I did. Warm from the sun, it was perfection.

I can't wait for more.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2009-04-23T09:41:00.001-07:00

We're about six weeks into the spring/summer/fall garden and things are growing great. There were some lofty plans to take the space and build a huge raised bed, but time and bad backs got in the way. So we're going ahead with the usual container/wine barrel garden we've had for the past five or six years. And like every spring, we've added a few more containers.

What's growing? Tomatoes (13 and counting, we added a Northern Lights that we discovered at the HFM last weekend), Japanese eggplant, Persian cucumbers (the best for the hundreds of Greek salads we eat during the summer), serrano peppers, Charentrais melons, 4 kinds of beets, swiss chard, silverbeet spinach, spring onions, rainbow carrots, turnips, strawberries (with actually berries, for the first time ever!), 4 kinds of basil, rosemary, 2 kinds of thyme, lemon verbena, oregano, Bob Marley mint (it smells smokey when you rub it, another HFM find), tarragon, sage (the flowers are below) and lavender.
And that's just for now. We're bound to adopt a few more things over the course of the spring/summer. Including, hopefully, a fig tree. To go with the Meyer lemon tree I forgot to mention. As you can imagine, my other career option is farming.

The early mornings would be tough, though.

Make Your Own Booze - Limoncello

2009-04-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a few books about Italy (living there, cooking there, etc...) and man does it sound lovely. And with several 95+ degree days in LA this week, I keep dreaming about that tasty, frosty Italian liqueur known as limoncello.

Limoncello is damned fine and, if I remembered the recipe I'd read a while back in the LA Times, damned easy to make. And I did have several Meyer lemons sitting around, just waiting to be used up...

So Saturday I did some internet recon, then some liquor store recon, then some microplane zesting and now I am only weeks away from enjoying my own frosty Italian liqueur. Which may or may not be served to some select guests at Craig & Sharra's baby shower.
You don't add the simple syrup until the second step of the process (which takes place two weeks after the initial zest 'n dump) and I'm considering experimenting a little. In addition to a straight up simple syrup, I was thinking of making one that's infused with basil and another that's infused with lavender and making two smaller limoncello batches with each. There's enough stuff for 2+ bottles of limoncello, so I'd probably split the second bottle and mix the flavored syrups with them. The guys at the Carmela Ice Cream & Sorbet stand inspired the first mix, my super awesome imagination inspired the second.

In the mean time, I have the juice of 12 Meyer lemons sitting in the fridge just begging me to make sorbet or something with them. Which would be a good thing in this heat.

Meyer Limoncello
from The LA Times

12 lemons
2 (750-ml) bottles 100-proof vodka, divided [*I used regular 80 proof vodka, which is fine, too]
2 cups water
2 cups sugar

1. Remove the yellow part of the lemon peel with a sharp peeler or fine grater, carefully avoiding the bitter white pith. If any pith remains on the back of a strip of peel, scrape it off.

2. Put the yellow peels in a jar or bottle, add 1 bottle vodka and seal tightly. Leave the bottle to steep until the peels lose their color, at least 2 weeks.

3. Put the water and sugar in a saucepan and boil until it turns clear. Let the syrup cool.

4. Strain the vodka from the peels and mix it with the remaining bottle of vodka and the syrup. Put the liqueur in bottles, seal tightly and let the components marry for at least 1 week before using. For drinking straight, store the limoncello in the freezer.

Begin Your Day on a Wholesome Note

2009-04-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

These dense whole grain muffins are just the thing to get you going (literally) in the morning and they are extra good as a mid morning snack with a cup of tea.

Whole Wheat, Oatmeal & Raisin Muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar (splenda works just as well)

1/4 cup packed brown sugar (again brown sugar splenda works great)

2 TB untoasted wheat germ

2 TB wheat bran

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats

1/3 cup pitted dates

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1 cup lowfat buttermilk

1/4 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg, beaten

1/2 cup boiling water

cooking spray

Lightly spoon flour into a measuring cup, level with a knife. Combine flour with next 7 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Stir in oats, dates, raisins, and cranberries. Make a well in center of mixture. Combine buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and egg and add to flour mixture. Stir just until moist. Stir in boiling water and then let stand for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375

spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched. Remove muffins from pans immediately and place on wire rack. Yield is 12 servings.

calories: 204 fat: 6.4 grams, protein: 4.6 grams carbs: 34.7 grams fiber 3.4 grams

La Fête du Fromage - Andante's Picolo

2009-04-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

When it comes to my desert island food - you know, that "you're stranded on a desert island and you can only eat one thing for the rest of your life" type scenario - I think I would have a seriously tough time choosing between pork (all forms) and cheese. You've heard me go on and on about pork, so today it's all about cheese.

One of my favorite blogs, Chez Loulou, does a weekly "Fête du Fromage", a tasting and write up of one of the many, many French cheeses on offer (CL is based in the Minervois region of France). And each month, she opens it up to her readers and fellow bloggers, to submit their own fromage to fête. I've been meaning to come up with a post for a while now, but I really wanted my first to be one of the Andante cheeses. Only problem? They can be difficult to find outside of the Bay Area.

I first discovered Andante on a visit to the family up in Marin, at the Sunday Farmers Market at the Civic Center. They are a local dairy, making a variety of cow and goats milk cheeses, which are also sold at the Ferry Building Farmers Market in the City. In addition, they supply many Bay Area and SoCal restaurants and wholesale to a few stores, including Whole Foods. Which is where Noah and I stumbled upon their Picolo cheese down here in Los Angeles.

To say that I was excited to see this little cheese in my neck of the woods is an understatement. In fact, Noah practically shouted across the cheese section to alert me to its presence. He'd been through many an Andante cheesehunting expedtion with me down here, all fruitless.
But enough about the search, more about the cheese! Picolo is a triple creme, one of my favorite kinds of cheese. It's rich and, obviously, incredibly creamy. The flavor was nice and buttery, with a hint of mushroom and an underlying pleasant grassiness. The rind is edible and I enjoyed it, though it might be too agressive for some. We paired it with a nice Provencal rosè, but the Andante folks also recommend it with a Gruner Veltliner or other minerally, melony white. There was some sliced baguette to go along with it, but Noah and I ended up eating pretty much the whole round on its own.

If you're in California, check your local cheesemongers for this cheese. It's a lovely, rich, artisnal treat.

Dessert Whore. Who, Me?

2009-04-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

You know when you have one of those days where you look at the fridge/pantry/fruit stand and realize - "Oh crap, I need to use this NOW or we're going to have a serious, stinky problem on our hands?" That was me earlier this week when I realized that all at once I had bananas, yogurt and creme fraiche thisclose to nasty.

Maybe I'm being a bit uninventive, but it seems like you can only go sweet with bananas - bread, cake, pie, cookies. You see where I'm going with this? But if I make one more banana bread or banana muffin recipe, Noah might protest. Then I remembered reading a recipe for a simple yogurt cake in On Rue Tatin and figured it could be modified into a banana yogurt cake. Okay, so it's not so far from banana bread, but at least I could pretend. Of course, I'm a meddler, and I looked up recipes for the traditional French yogurt cake at a few other French blog sites and found one I liked slightly better here.

I love baking, even though I am only moderately good at it. Mostly I blame my spotty oven for my many failed baking endeavors, even when it's clearly not Oven's fault. But I got this one mostly right - next time I might decrease the liquid or increase the flour a bit to compensate for the denseness of the bananas. Still, served warm (or cold, a few days later when the flavors have really set) with a dollop of creme fraiche mixed with cinnamon and vanilla sugar, this cake pretty much rocked.

If you're looking for a nice, moderately sweet cake, this is your girl.

Gâteau au Yaourt

modified from a recipe by Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini

- 2 eggs
- 250ml (1 cup) whole milk plain unsweetened yogurt (if you use two 125ml or 4oz tubs, you can use them to measure out the rest of the ingredients) [*I used half yogurt and half creme fraiche]
- 200g (1 cup) sugar (you can use an empty tub of yogurt and measure the equivalent of 2 yogurt tubs if you used the 125ml or 4oz kind) [*Because of the added banana, I halved the sugar]
- 80ml (1/3 cup) vegetable oil (or a bit less than 1 yogurt tub) [*With banana, I tend to use less oils/butter so instead I melted 2 tbsp of butter and added it to the mix in place of oil]
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (or 4 yogurt tubs)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla paste/extract
- 1 tablespoon light rum [*I didn't have it, so I left it out]

- *Additionally, I added: 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. nutmeg to bring out the flavor of the bananas

Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F), line the bottom of a round 25-cm (10-inch) cake pan with parchment paper and grease the sides. In a large mixing-bowl, gently combine the yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, oil, and rum. In another bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Add the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture, and blend together -- don't overwork the dough. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Let stand for ten minutes, and transfer onto a rack to cool.

Creme Fraiche Topping (for 2-4 slices)

1/4 c. creme fraiche
1 tbsp. vanilla sugar
a few sprinkles of cinnamon, to taste (about 1/8 tsp)

Mix together, let it sit for a few minutes so the flavors blend, then top the cake with it. You may thin it with a dash of milk if it's too thick for your taste.

25 Things I Love About LA #4 - Tomatomania

2009-04-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was the annual Tomatomania sale at the Tapia Brothers Farm Stand in Encino. It's the fourth year Noah and I have gone and we always end up buying more plants than we have room for in our backyard container garden. And yet, we've managed to find a way...
Above are our tomato choices, twelve in all, as well as some basil. We grabbed strawberry plants later, too. A quick list of our tomatoes, from memory - Siberia, Pineapple, Reisentraube, Enchanted, Indian Moon, Bi-Color Cherry, Matt's Gold Cherry, Black Krim, Black Truffle (a hybrid of the Black Trifele, which we grew with moderate success last year), Chocolate Stripe, Copia and Costoluto Genovese. Holy crap, I can't believe I remembered them all. Okay, Noah remembered that last one.
The tomatoes they sell are like 99% heirlooms, with some old standbys like Early Girls and Best Boys thrown in for the non-adventurous. Which always confuses me - if you're at a huge, well known heirloom tomato event with hundreds of tasty varieties, why the hell do you buy the ones you can get at Home Depot?

You can see how many flats they have filled with seedlings. The picture above is about 1/5 of the entire sale area. The only variety we really wanted and couldn't find this year was Northern Lights. It's a great yellow/orange beefsteak with red stripes that was a prolific plant for us a few years back.
The farm stand only hosts the event, but sells it's own fruits, flowers and plants and is a pretty cool place. They've expanded their chicken coop (above) and you get the pleasure of listening to the chickens cluck away while you shop. It's great fun and makes me yearn for my own urban chicken coop. I love this little farm that's only 20 minutes from the heart of Hollywood
But it's not just us lucky Angelenos that get to attend Tomatomania events. The company does a variety of events in California and back east in Lothian, MD and Litchfield, CT. Dates are below. And whether you get your tomatoes there or from your local nursery or on the internet from places like Seed Savers, it's time to start looking. SPRING IS HERE!

Fillmore, CA *NEW

April 4 Only Otto and Sons Nursery

Beverly Hills, CA

April 18 PartyPaperLife

Sonoma, CA

April 25 - 26 Cornerstone Place

Arcadia, CA

May 1 - 3 LA Garden Show

Lothian, MD *NEW

May 8 - 10 Greenstreet Gardens

Litchfield, CT

May 15 - 17 White Flower Farm

No excuse for Negligence!!

2009-03-31T05:21:00.000-07:00

I have been soooo negligent about posting anything food related in a long time. But I'm on a mission to lose some weight before our big trip to Eastern Europe and I am doing Jenny Craig at home... hardly fare for posting to this auspicious food blog so I am getting my food fixes vicariously by reading the posts and recipes of others. What a drag!! But somehow posting pictures of the pathetic portion size of JC food doesn't seem quite appropriate. But you all wait until we return from Europe. I will take lots of pics of food on the trip... especially desserts in Vienna! Toodles for now...

Long, Medium and Close Up

2009-03-28T14:45:00.001-07:00

Sherry and I passed this tree on a hike in Bronson Canyon. It was so cool, we had to take pictures. First, from far away.
Then the always useful medium shot.

Last, the close up.

Through the tree, you can see the forest.

More Beerfests???

2009-03-26T09:29:00.001-07:00

Not one, but two of our awesome friends e-mailed Noah and I yesterday to inform us of ANOTHER beerfest in Los Angeles. What? More excuses to drink massive amounts of beer? As the tiny blonde one said, "Bring it."

The 1st annual Craft Beer Fest L.A. will be held May 9th, hosted by C.A.B.A.L., perhaps the best acronym ever (it stands for the Los Angeles Craft and Artisanal Beer Appreciation League). According to their site, "A dozen of the state’s best brewers will showcase 26 handcrafted beers while L.A. chefs sling FREE pub grub (gourmet bar nuts, artisan cheese pairings, and vegan snacks). Attendees can try beer treats like ale cupcakes and stout ice cream from the gelato geniuses at Scoops. And a slew of local bands will share the stage with renowned brewers giving tips, and cheese experts lecturing on how to pair beers with food."

Uh, sweet! The event is at the LA Echoplex and is rumored to be taking place from 2-9pm. Of course, the evil beer-hating god Soberus would have Noah and I hosting a baby shower that day, but you know we'll bust our butts to make at least the last three or four hours. Because for $30, why not?

NYT Mag Recipe Challenge #2 - Grilled Pork Porterhouse with an Apple-Maple-Ginger Sauce

2009-03-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to do this thing where I challenge myself to cook at least one recipe a month that's printed in the NY Times Sunday Magazine. I hadn't done one in a while, due in part to laziness and in part to the only tempting thing from the past month being a crazy good, crazy fattening recipe for Tortoni. But last Sunday I opened the Magazine to find a recipe for brined pork chops that I had all but three ingredients for - those being the chops themselves, apple juice and agar. And this recipe has at least 2 dozen ingredients, so, you know, score!
This is another one of those recipes that sounds more labor intensive than it really is. Sure, it takes time, but most of that time the pork chops are sitting in a brine in your fridge. Which means, don't try and do this less than 8 hours before you want to eat it, but come up with something else to do with 7 of those hours.

Sure, the recipe says brine the pork 24 hours. But eff that, I brined for 8 hours and the pork chops were HEAVEN. In all honesty, better than the stuffed pork chops from a few months back. Cause, the thing with pork chops is, it's really easy to screw them up and overcook them. Brining the chops makes the cooking time a little more forgiveable. The chops are going to be moist even if you freak out about getting trichnosis and leave them on for two more minutes JUST TO BE SURE. I love a recipe that makes you look good and this one does.

I served the chops on Monday night with a red cabbage, apple and prune side that was inspired by Clotilde over at Chocolate & Zucchini. The cabbage was a great pairing with the pork, a classic match. And a convenient one, since I had (and still have) a ton of red cabbage left over from the Farmers Market last week. Score Part 2: Electric Score-a-loo.

The only component of the dish I wasn't totally in love with is the sauce that goes over the top, and that may have to do with my lack of agar use, the fact that it made WAY more sauce than necessary and that the apple juice I used was a bit sweeter than I wanted. Used sparingly, the sauce was fine, but too much would make a sweet mess on your chops. Be warned. But don't be scared away. These chops are too good to miss.

Grilled Pork Porterhouse with an Apple-Maple-Ginger Sauce
from Christine Muhlke for the NY Times Sunday Magazine "Field Report", March 1, 2009

For the brine:
1/4 c. maple syrup
5 tbsp. kosher salt
3 tbsp. peeled, sliced ginger
3 tbsp. crushed garlic
1 sprig fresh sage
3/4 c. onion slices, cut into 1/4 inch rings
5 bay leaves
2 tsp. peppercorns
6 1 1/4 inch thick pork loin chops (also known as pork porterhouses), preferably Berkshire organic (*I used the TJ's brand, I'm no snob)

For the infused oil:
1 tbsp. coriander seeds
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp. peppercorns
2 tbsp. minced shallot
1 tsp. minced fresh thyme
1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary
1/2 c. vegetable oil

For the sauce:
2 tbsp. butter
1/4 c. minced shallot
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 c. apple juice
1/2 c. chicken stock
3 star anise
2 tbsp. minced ginger
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1 tbsp. agar
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Twenty four hours before cooking (*I did this 8 hours before and it still turned out lovely), stir all of the brine ingredients except the pork into 1 quart of water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Let cool to room temperature. Submerge the pork chops in the brine, cover and refrigerate.
2. The next morning (*or at the same time, if you're doing day-of), prepare the infused oil. Grind the coriander, bay leaf and peppercorns in a spice mill or a clean coffee grinder and combine with the remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Let sit at room temperature. (*Hehe, I just realized I totally never did the spice mill grinding bit, and the oil infused just fine).
3. Make the sauce: in a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the shallots and saute until carmelized, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the apple juice, chicken stock, star anise and ginger. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until reduced by one-quarter. Add the maple syrup, vanilla pod and seeds and agar and simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat. Discard the star anise and vanilla pod. Puree the mix in a blender (*I used an immersion hand blender in the pot), then pass through a fine mesh sieve (*I did not pass through a fine mesh sieve because I am lazy like that). Season to taste with salt and pepper. **Now that I think about it, maybe adding a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar may have helped cut the sweetness while preserving the key flavors.
4. Prepare a charcoal or gas grill (*or a grill pan for indoors) to medium-high heat. Rinse the meat and pat dry with a paper towel. Brush the chops with the infused oil, then sprinkle lightly with salt. Grill to medium doneness, or until the internal temperature reads 135-140 degrees on a thermometer and the middle is light pink, about 6 minutes per side. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving. Drizzle with warm sauce and serve.

Serves 6

And about that cabbage side? Here's a really simple rundown.

Take 1/2 a red cabbage, cut it in half again, then slice it thinly. Mix it with 1-2 chopped apples (I used Fuji), 8 prunes and 2 cloves of chopped garlic. Cook it in a little oil (1-2 tbsp. max), then after it's reduced a bit, add in about a cup of apple juice and 2-4 tbsp. of apple cider vinegar, to taste. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes and serve along side the pork chops.

25 Things We Love About L.A. # 3 - Belgian Beer Festival @ Lucky Baldwin's Pub

2009-03-04T10:03:00.000-08:00

For the past 10 years, the great people over at Lucky Baldwin's Pub in Pasadena have been hosting one of the largest Belgian Beer drinking festivals this side of the Atlantic Ocean. The fest runs for the last 2 + weeks of February and there is now a new follow-up festival in August.

If you love beer like we do, this is the one time of the year to make sure you are in town...To that avail, our friends and family have made this a holiday of sorts with mass group outings the past few years on each weekend of the fest...

What makes this so fantastic is the incredible amount of beer they fly in from Belgian and have flowing through their 60 taps. The brews rotate each day as kegs get kicked and new barrels get delivered. Served in their proper glasses, Chimay taster glasses or one of the unique festival glasses, each beer has its own unique identity, flavor and story. Up and to the left is the beer menu from Saturday Feb 21, Day 8 of this year's festival, signed by the entire clan.

This year St. Feuillien sponspered the festival and one of the highlights was their seasonal Easter Beer. A medium bodied dubbel with a spicy undercurrent and a little sweetness on both the nose and palate, we enjoyed a glass of this each day we visited the fest.

Another favorite of ours and a standard in the Gallerka household is the old ABT 12 from St. Bernardus. Pictured here in one of the LB festival glasses, this brew is the king of beers. Strong, dark and beautiful, # 12 is a rich, smooth, woody, malt filled festival in your mouth with a high alcohol content (10.5%) and is meant to be enjoyed as often as you can.

Unfortunately for us, on the big day trip this year, few of the Dupont or Consondonk beers were available on tap. But never fear, at Lucky's they have one of the greatest bottle selections in the area and we were able to enjoy a big bottle of Avec Les Bons Voeux, pictured here, during our game of bones. Notice the beautiful golden color of the cloudy farmhouse style unfiltered ale, this beer is even better in the bottle due to its refermentation once it is capped. An incredibly drinkable beer and dangerous with 9.5% alcohol content, this brew was originally made for Dupont to give as a New Years present to their family and favorite clients, it's now in regular rotation. Simply an amazing brew.

Another wonderful beer that is only available by the bottle is the #10 from the Trappistes Rochefort. This one is a true sipper. Well balanced, dark and sugary, you can really taste the alcohol in this 11.3% winner. Served in its proper glass, the complexity of this beer really comes through with dark dried fruit flavors popping through the rich malty taste. We rarely find this beer here in LA on the shelf at Bev Mo, but I was reminded how much I love this beer on a recent trip to Paris when we visited La Cave a bulles, a boutique beer shop in the 4e. Simon, the owner and a true beer connoisseur, was showing us all the wonderful Belgian style French made Noel beers, when we came across a bottle of this and he reminisced on how the #10 was the beer that made him love beer... If you are ever in Paris, we fully recommend a visit to his shop.

A beer you can find easily here in LA and the name of the sister pub of Lucky's, Delirium Tremens is one of our go to staples when we are looking for a classic golden lacy Belgian to wash down some mules frites or fish and chips. Pictured here are the family of Delirium Beers: Delirium Noel (left), Delirium Tremens (middle) and Delirium Nocturum (right).

So to recap all that wonderful and tasty beerformation we have, here's a list of some of the beers that stood out to us and hopefully you can try too on your next trip to Brussels or over to Lucky's if that plane flight proves to be too expensive...

BEER RATING ALCOHOL % NOTES:
Affliglem Noel (A 9%) Spicy Noel with straw, hay, caramel/brown sugar flavors

Avec Les Bons Voeux (A+ 9.5%) Spicy yeast, with tart fruit and floral tones

Cherish Kriek (B+ 5%) Cherry beer with a funky taste

Corsondonk Brown Ale (A 8%) Murky, dark brown in color, dried fruits, bread and a little bitter

Corsondonk Pale Ale (A- 7.5%) Bread and fruit. Golden and a ton of head

Delirium Tremens (A- 9%) Golden, lacy and easy to drink

Dulle Teve Tripl (B+ 10%) Yeast, flowers, sweet molasses

Dupont Foret (A 7.5%) Earthly, yeasty and delicious with floral, fruit and spicy flavors

Dupont Saison A (6.5%) Herbal, light earthly with notes of fruit. Unfiltered Farmhouse style

Gouden Carolus Ambriol (B 8%) Dark amber with slight fruit sweet scent. Lots of alcohol flavor

Gouden Carolus Tripel (B+ 9%) Classis triple with yeast and citrus flavor

Grimbergen Double (B+ 7%) Apple, clove, with some spice and a bitter finish

Kapitell ABT (A- 10%) Complex yeasty funky malt taste. High alcohol flavor

Mannekin Pis (B+ 4.5%) Lemon, orange blanche style with a little bread and spice

Maredsous 10 (A 10%) Dark orange in color with malty slightly tart taste. Earthy hops abd a little bitter

Roquefort 10 (A+ 11.3%) Caramel, dark fruit with slight spice and high alcohol taste

St. Bernardus ABT 12 (A+ 10.5%) Dark, malty & smooth with hints of dark dried fruit and strong musty, woody flavors

St. Feuillien Easter Beer (A 7.5%) Burnt sugar, tropical fruit, lots of underlying spice

t Smisje Special (B+ 12%) Very strong caramel flavors and a high alcohol content

And don't miss out because the Belgian Beer Festival was just extended through this weekend so head over to Lucky's and enjoy some of the finer things in life!

Lucky Baldwin's Pub
17 S. Raymond Ave,
Pasadena, CA 91105
http://www.luckybaldwins.com/

Cave à bulles
45 rue Quincampoix
75004 Paris
http://www.caveabulles.fr/

25 Things I Love About LA #2 - The Burbank Airport

2009-03-03T12:32:00.000-08:00

LAX gets all the play, but any smart, centrally located (read, non beach-dweller) Angeleno knows that Burbank airport is soooo much better. Basically if you're flying anywhere on the West Coast or in the Southwest (or via Southwest) or to NYC (via Jet Blue), this is the way to go. Parking? A breeze. Check-in? A snap. Security? Definitely not going to make you pull your hair out.
And have I mentioned the lovely, outdoor baggage claim in Terminal A? So much nicer than waiting in the nasty, flourescent lighting of the LAX baggage claims. Trust me, I've done that three times in the last two months. Blech.

So thanks, Burbank Airport, for almost making flying fun again. Oh yeah, and if you're flying out of Terminal A, there's a decent bar near the center of the Terminal that serves beer, wine and cocktails. Booze definitely makes flying more fun.

French Bean Soup

2009-02-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

Brian and I were just home from Vegas this weekend, and we wanted to cook up food in the fridge for dinner, so here is what we came up with without going out to the store. Almost all of the food was free from photo shoots I had worked on previously that week, and some was from our garden.

What we had:

Fennel

Carrots

Celery

Yellow foot mushrooms

Chicken stock (made previously in the week from a chicken by us, not from the box)

Mixed Dried Beans

Onions

Garlic

What came from the garden to add in:

Savoy Spinach

Dinosaur Kale

Thyme

Oregano

Step 1: Soak the beans overnite, but if you don't have time to, which is what happened to us since were out of town the nite before we put the beans into pan with about 1 -2 inches of water over them, brought the water to a boil and turned it off, and let them sit for 1 hour.

Step 2:

Sautéed up the fennel, carrots, celery and onions with some olive oil for about 10 - 20 minutes, added some salts and spices (not sure what exactly Brian did that when I wasn't looking), and added the garlic in towards the end, so it didn't burn. Did this in our Le Cruset 6 3/4 quart pan.

Step 3: Added chicken stalk to the carrots, celery, onion, fennel and garlic sautee'. Drain the beans that were soaking and add them in as well. Tie together the thyme and oregano and add it into the soup. Bring everything to a boil, then set to a simmer on low. Add mushrooms, and some more salt and spices. Simmer on low until beans are soft.

Step 4: Add in the greens for about 5 minutes before you are ready to eat the soup.

Step 5: Garnish with parmesan or similar grated cheese, we used a combo of nice hard grated cheese.

Soup was very yummy with garlic bread, too. Yum Yum Yum....

Entertaining: Cambridge Style

2009-02-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

I lived in India in the late 1970's and early 1980's. While there, I learned to love and cook Indian food. The unique blend of spices (sweet, savory, and hot) give a sensory sensation like no other food does. For Christmas I received Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking and have been experimenting ever since.

To test my skills, I invited some friends over for a 3 course meal on Saturday night.

The menu was simple northern Indian style and consisted of:

Saag Goshi (Lamb with Spinach)

Taridar Chukandar (Gently Stewed Beets)

Masoor Dal (Red Lentils Tarka)

Basmati Rice

Green Onion Chutney

Yogurt

Photos: By John Carlson

It was not difficult to time the meal and when guests arrived at 6:00 pm, everything was just finishing.

Photos: John Carlson

Sharing this meal with friends was wonderful. It was hot and spicy but the yogurt gave a cool break.

Photos: John Carlson

Here are the Recipes. Most of the spices can be found at the Village Store Coop or any good spice retailer.

Beef or Lamb with Spinach

Ingredients:

Saag Goshi (Beef or Lamb with Spinach)

1 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach
1 large onion (about 10 ounces) peeled and coarsely chopped
2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, peeled
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 bay leaves
10 cardamon pods
8 whole cloves
2 2-inch sticks cinnamon
1 1/3 pounds stewing beef or boned shoulder of lamb, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1+ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4-1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you want it)
1/2 teaspoon garam masala

Instructions:

Following the instructions on the package, drop the spinach into boiling water and boil just until it is defrosted. Drain and squeeze out most of the water.

Put the onion, ginger, and garlic into the container of a food processor and pulse, starting and stopping with great rapidity until finely chopped.

Put the oil in a large pot and set over high heat. When the oil is hot, put in the bay leaves, cardamon posd, cloves and cinnamon sticks. Stir once or twice and put in the finely chopped onion, ginger and garlic. Sir and cook over high heat for 5 minutes. Put in the beef or lamb, the spinach, 2.5 cups of water, salt, coriander, cumin, and cayenne. Cover, securely and bring up to full boil over high heat. Now lower the heat to simmer and cook (lamb for 1-hour/beef for 1.5-hours). Remove the lid and add the garam masala and bring the contents to a boil again. Cook uncovered, stirring gently over high heat for 7-10 minutes or until the sauce is reduced and thick.

Masor Dal (Red Lentils Tarka

Ingredients:
1.5 cups red lentils (masoor dal)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1.25-1.5 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
Generous pinch of ground asafetida (this spice can be found in most health food stores)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3-5 dried, hot red chiles.

Instructions:
Pick over the lentils and wash in several changes of water. Drain. Put in a heavy saucepan. Add 5 cups water and the turmeric. Stir and bring to a simmer (do not let it boil over). Cover in such a way as to leave the lid just very slightly ajar, turn the heat to low, and simmer gently for 35-40 minutes or until tender. Stir a few times during the cooking. Add the salt and mix. Leve covered, on very low heat, as yo do the next step.

Put the oil in a small frying pan and set over medium-high heat.
When the oil is hot,put in the asafetida; then a second later, add the cumin seeds. Let the cumin seeds sizzle for a few seconds. Put in the red chiles. As soon as they turn dark red (this takes just a few seconds), lift up the lid of the lentil pan and pour in the contents of the frying pan oil as well as spices. Cover the saucepan immediately to trap the aromas.

Taridar Chukandar (Gently Stewed Beets)

Ingredients
2 pounds beets without stems and leaves
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 bay leaf
1 cup canned chopped tomatoes or lightly drained canned whole tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions
Peel the beets and cut into 1-inch chunks

Put the oil in a wide, medium-sized pan and set over high heat. When the oil is hot, put in the cumin seeds and bay leaf. As soon as the bay leaf darkens slights (this takes just seconds) put in the tomatoes, ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, cayenne, beets, salt, and 1-1/2 cups water. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover, turn the heat to low, and simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the beets are tender.

All dishes serve 4-6 people.

We added a nice red wine to the table.

Did You Hear? I Love Pork.

2009-02-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

I think, if you've read this blog before, you may have realized that pork and I are totally BFF. In fact, my husband should be a little worried that some day I will run off with the pork guy at the farmer's market. Because, free pork for life? Tempting. So it's pretty obvious that for the Valentine's Day dinner cook-off (please, like it wasn't a competition in my brain), I went with a porky first course. That would be the Country Terrine with Pistachios from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook.
Like I said in an earlier post, this wasn't a particularly difficult dish (given that you own a stand mixer with a meat grinder attachment, which lucky me, I do). It just took a HELL of a long time to make. Like four days. Maybe five. I kind of lost count at some point. Most of that time is spent letting the meat marinate - first after cutting it into cubes, then again after grinding it (I deviated from the recipe a bit in this) and then AGAIN after you cook the terrine.
Hopefully you're not creeped out by the above picture of meat as it comes out of the grinder. If you are, I would seriously reconsider ever attempting this dish on your own. And also, SISSY!
But after all the crazy time and (at least procuring the meat products) effort, THIS DISH KICKS ASS. Like it's almost a week later and I'm STILL eating it. Even though I think it's probably as bad, if not worse than the Porkstrosity we had at the Super Bowl. I love this terrine. I would make out with this terrine at a junior high school dance. And if you're smart, you'll get the taste of porky goodness on your lips, too.

Country Terrine with Pistachios
by Alice Waters, from the Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook

3 lbs. lean boneless pork shoulder
1/2 lb. back fat (from a pig, natch)
3 oz. pancetta
1 1/2 tbsp. salt
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
8 allspice berries
1/4 tsp. dried thyme (I used fresh from the garden and went with a full tablespoon)
1 clove
A pinch of cayenne (about 1/4 tsp. in my dish)
1/4 c. chopped parsley
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1/2 c. shelled whole pistachios
4 bay leaves
OPTIONAL: Caul fat

1. Day 1 - Cut the pork shoulder, back fat and pancetta into 1 inch thick pieces. Toss the meat with 1 1/2 tsp. salt and refrigerate. (I tossed it with the spice mixture from the next step and let the cubes rest over night).
2. Day 1 or 2 (I did it on day 1) - Pulverize the 2 bay leaves, the peppercorns, allspice, thyme, clove and cayenne in a mortar or spice mill (or coffee grinder). Add 2/3 of this spice mixture to the meat and mix together. Reserve the remainder.
3. Day 2 - Grind the seasoned meat using the 1/4 inch plate of a meat grinder (this would be the bigger holed grinder attachment on the Kitchen Aid). Grind 1/3 of the ground meat again. Combine the two meat mixtures and refrigerate overnight.
4. Day 3 - The next day, add the parsley, garlic and pistachios, and mix lightly with your hands. Do not overhandle or the texture of the terrine will be too dense. To taste for seasoning, fry a bit of the mixture and chill it (it will taste different when cold, which is how the dish is served). It may require more salt or spice mixture at the time (mine didn't). Don't fuss with it too much.
5. Day 3 - Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Place 2 bay leaves on the bottom of each of two 5 cup (1.2 L) earthenware terrines or glass loaf pans. Add half of the pork mixture to each terrine. (OR: Freeze half of the mixture, enough for a second terrine, as I did). Cover each with a lid or with foil. (If you wish, line the 2 pans with caul fat, leaving some hanging over the sides; add the bay leaves and pork mixture, wrap the caul over the top and do not cover.) Tap the pans on a tabletop to settle everything. Put a kitchen towl in the bottom of a deep roasting pan and set the terrines on it (the towel will insulate the bottom of the pan). Fill the pan with enough hot water to come 2/3 up the sides of the terrines and bake until the internal temperature reaches 140 degrees F, in about 1 1/2 hours (mine took about 98 minutes total). Remove the terrines from the roasting pan and cool at room temperature for about 2 hours, then cover and refrigerate overnight.
6. Days 4-6 - The terrines CAN be eaten the next day, but they will develop more flavor if left for 2-3 days. To unmold, dip the pans in hot water for a few minutes and invert. Cut into thick slices and serve with strong Dijon mustard and cornichons.

Variations: Use half the mixture to make a terrine and the other half to make rustic sausages wrapped in caul fat for a meal the same day (well, the same day being Day 3). For a more complex terrine, add poultry livers and hearts, a little black truffle and a splash of Cognac.

25 Things I Love About LA #1 - The Hollywood Sign

2009-02-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Just Another American in Paris' list of things she loves about her city, I decided it would be fun to post up "25 Things I Love About Los Angeles".

#1: The Hollywood Sign.
Maybe it's because I see it pretty much every day when I leave the house, but the sign has become for me what the Golden Gate Bridge or the Transamerica Pyramid were for me growing up in San Francisco. A visual touchstone of sorts. There's also the emotional jolt it gives me, any time I'm feeling frustrated with my real, paying job. I mean, c'mon, can I actually complain that I get to be doing what I (and a million other people) would kill for as a career? Sure, sometimes I have to write crap I don't believe in, but a lot of times I don't. And for that, I'm thankful.
And when you get to drive 10 minutes from your house and then hike up Bronson Canyon, which provides amazing views like this, well color me happy.

A Valentine's Food Extravaganza

2009-02-16T12:47:00.001-08:00

This year for Valentine's Day, Noah and I decided to forego the ridiculously overpriced restaurants (yeah, I'm talking to you Sona) in favor of a homemade Valentine's feast. I proposed a fun idea - each of us makes three courses (app/main/dessert) and we end up with a six course tasting menu. Above is the table, set with the first round of dishes.
This homemade pork terrine was my first course. I used a recipe from the Chez Panisse Cafe Menu Book (which I will be posting later). And while it was time intensive, 2-3 days of meat marinating and 2-3 days of terrine resting, it wasn't all that labor-ific. And when the pork guy at your farmer's market doesn't blink when you ask for half a pound of back fat, you know you're good to go. I served it with a crusty sourdough boule, cornichons and Dijon mustard. I like to think it was as good as the one at Le Regalade in Paris.
Noah's dish was this Venetian Shrimp on Polenta dish, with a yummy butter lemon garlic sauce drizzled on top. The recipe came from an old Food + Wine article and was really simple and tasty.

My main course was the above crab duo. Bonus points for creative use of a claw. It's the crazy simple crab cake recipe from the Santa Monica Farmer's Market Cookbook and an equally simple Dungeness crab salad recipe from Sunday Suppers at Lucques. The salad is deconstructed and made up of roasted beets, avocado, watercress, crab and creme fraiche. The crab is dressed in a light dressing of oil, vinegar, lemon juice (which I subbed for the recommended lime juice), shallots and jalapeno. It was brilliant and complimented the crab perfectly.
Noah's main was a roasted game hen with thick bacon slices and roasted grapes. This simple combination kind of blew my mind. In fact, I'm thinking I'll eat the leftovers for lunch in a few minutes... Strangely enough, the recipe came from the same article in Food + Wine as the shrimp polenta, even though Noah had planned them out separately.
Above is the table, set with the second course. We drank an Alsatian Pinot Gris with all four of the dishes. A nice, dry match.
And finally, the dessert courses. I had been obsessing over the Whole Lemon Tart recipe that Deb at Smitten Kitchen posted a week or so back. I decided to use one of the precious Meyer lemons from my tree to make it, and instead of a full sized 9" tart, I went with mini tartlettes. I was kind of worried, having never tarted it up before (that's what she said), but everything turned out really, really well. Noah put together a mini cheese course - St. Andre triple cream and a 6 month aged Manchego. We ate it all, along with a 1999 Veuve Brut Rose champagne that Noah had given to me for Valentine's Day in 2005. So good!

By the end of the three hour meal, we were both stuffed and very, very happy. Who needs $500 dinners when you can make something even better at home for nowhere near that amount?

And did I mention I have enough dough and filling for two or three more tarts hanging out in my freezer right now. Yeah, let's see how long that lasts.

Lucky Horsehoe

2009-02-10T12:56:00.001-08:00

I shot this out on a walk this morning in Bronson Canyon. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and clear and cool after the rain of the last few days. I'll probably head up there again tomorrow, trying to sneak in another outdoor excursion before the rains start again.

I had my camera with me to take pictures for a little series I have planned for the site. Stay tuned!

NYT Mag Recipe Challenge #1 - Country Captain

2009-02-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

I admit it, I suck at reading my Sunday New York Times in anything approaching a timely fashion. Because, honestly, I'm really only in it for three sections - Sunday Styles, Travel and the Magazine. Sure, if I need a new book to read I'll check out the Book Review. And if I feel like depressing the hell out of myself I'll read the front or Business sections. And maybe if there's a story on the Manning brothers I'll check out the (worst ever) Sports section. But for me, it's all about the Holy Trinity of fashion, travel... and food.

Which is where the Magazine section comes in. In their regular features they do a weekly column on food. It used to be a section where they took an old recipe and updated it with some high falutin (and most likely NYC) chef's spin on it. Recently they turned it into a rotation of three or four different columns per month, including the old version but adding in some new stuff. (The only new one I remember is this guy who is going to cook stuff with his pre-schooler foodie son. It's "aww, cute" but could get annoying.)

Anyway, they print a recipe or two with every column, which is nice. And for the first time in the many years of getting the Times, I've actually tried a recipe. And may do so again. Yep, it was good. And easy. But what was it? Country Captain. Whaaa???
Country Captain is a southern chicken dish (Charleston and Savannah like to argue over which city originated the dish) that reminds me quite a bit of a chicken version of my mom's shrimp creole crossed with Chicken Cacciatore. It was simple and tasty, two things anyone who doesn't feel like slaving in front of a stove for three hours on a weeknight is definitely looking for. Oh yes, and it was cheap - I'd guess under $20 for all the ingredients for a 4 person meal. The dish incorporates chicken thighs, an inexpensive cut of chicken. But you could probably use the breast, if dark meat doesn't do it for you*. You use canned tomatoes, green peppers, a little bacon for flavor and a side of rice for starchy goodtimes (or, if you're me and out of rice, couscous is a great substitute). And voila - dinner.

* If dark meat doesn't do it for you, you officially suck. Dark meat kicks light meats ass.

COUNTRY CAPTAIN

by Sam Sifton as printed in the New York Times Magazine

1/4 flour
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 tbsp. butter
3 lbs. (about 8) chicken thighs
4 slices bacon
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tbsp. curry powder
3 tbsp. currants (I subbed raisins)
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes and their juices
3 tbsp. slivered almonds, toasted
Cooked white rice (or couscous)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine the flour, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper and the thyme in a bowl. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat until it foams. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, shaking off excess, and fry, in batches if needed, until browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate and drain off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat in the skillet.
3. Return the skillet to medium heat, add the bacon and fry until crispy. Transfer to a plate. Once cool, crumble and set aside.
4. Add the onion, pepper, celery, garlic, curry powder and 1 tablespoon of the currants to the skillet and sauté over medium-high heat until soft and fragrant, about 7 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and their juices, bring to a boil and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Spread 1 cup of the tomato sauce in the bottom of an ovenproof casserole large enough to hold the chicken snugly in one layer. Arrange the chicken on top. Pour the remaining sauce over and around the chicken. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for 15 minutes more.
6. Top with the crumbled bacon, remaining currants and slivered almonds. Serve with cooked rice and any condiments you wish.

Serves 4.

Super Bowl Funday and the Porkstrosity

2009-02-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

That's right folks, we did it.

We made the Porkstrosity aka Pork Explosion aka Heart Attack in a Dish for the Super Bowl. Actually, Noah and Jeremy did it, with an assist from Param, Rice and Christina. I was just a post-pork spectator. And maybe I sampled the wares.
C'mon, you can't tell me this doesn't look fantastically tasty. It's a freakin' basket weave of bacon, encasing the best Sweet Italian sausages on offer at the H-wood Farmers Market. And there's BBQ sauce!
Okay, I know - it makes Paula Dean's typical offerings look like diet food. BUT when you break down the 5000 calorie, 500 fat gram log into its 15 serving slices, that's only 333 calories and (okay, gulp) 33 fat grams per slice - less if you use turkey bacon (gag). And I only had half a slice, and it was wrapped in a lettuce leaf, so damn, that's like health food right there.

Are you going to tell me that the ribs/burger/fried chicken YOU ate during the Super Bowl was any healthier than that? Yeah, I didn't think so.

All photos by Christina Stahlheber.

Winter Mini-Harvest

2009-01-26T19:20:00.001-08:00

I picked these beauties today.

Doing a 3-5 day pickle for the beets. The tomato will ripen for a few more days before heading into a salad or something. But the meyer lemon is the one I'm most proud of - we transplanted our tree two years ago and it seemed like it was never going to fruit again. This little fella was the first one to ripen from the current crop (a whopping three lemons).

Any ideas on how best to treat it/eat it?

Two Dinners

2009-01-26T17:58:00.000-08:00

Lest you think all we do is desserts, here are two awesome dinners Noah and I made recently. The first is the above dish, our take on a meal we had at Angeli Caffe recently - Penne with Ricotta, Cherry Tomatoes and Bacon. The second, in the pictures below, is Stuffed Pork Chops with Spinach, Goat Cheese and Green Tomato Chutney.

The penne dish was a Monday Night Special, which inevitably means quick and easy. And because the LA weather can't decide if it's going to be hot or freezing on any given day lately (whoo! global warming), it's a dish that's warm, but not heavy. Meaning it goes both ways. In a totally non-porno way. We had to make some substitutions on the original because I was totally lazy and forgot to roast any garlic for the pasta and also because we had some awesome bacon to use up and didn't feel like battling the crowds at TJs to get pancetta.
The stuffed pork chops were all Noah. I'm guessing that on Saturday, while I was writing in the bedroom he was watching the Food Network, because the dish is a riff on a recipe from Giada De Laurentiis (the lollipop head who loves to host kicky "impromptu" dinner parties). Okay, no more bagging on Giada, 'cause honestly she has good ideas for simple meals and is also one million times less annoying than RachRay and P.Dean.

Noah whipped it up for dinner last night and bless him, totally let me veg on the couch nursing a nasty, but diminishing hangover. Note to self: you cannot drink like you're 27 anymore, sugar. Again, there were substitutions (I think if you're a person who enjoys eating and cooking at all it's basically impossible not to tweak a recipe to fit your own needs/likes/timelines). The only one of real note is that the recipe calls for sun-dried tomatoes, of which I am not a big fan (though more of a fan than roasted red peppers which just kind of gross me out). Also, we didn't have any. So my genius ass chimed in from the couch with the brilliant idea of subbing in some of the Green Tomato Chutney Noah's Aunt Debra made us for Xmas. Okay, Deb, that stuff is AWESOME! And was perfect for the pork.

I added a salad to the meal, along with some sliced baguette and the crack-tastic Jean-Yves Bordier butter that we still have from Paris. If anyone knows where I can get this in the States, tell me now. I'm almost out and an $800 plane ticket seems like a slightly elevated price tag for butter. But for this butter, only slightly.

So there you go, not one but TWO non-dessert recipes for y'all to enjoy.
Whole Wheat Penne with Ricotta, Cherry Tomatoes and Bacon
inspired by Angeli Caffe

2 servings whole wheat penne (I'm too lazy to measure out how much exactly, but am guessing it's about 2 c. of dried pasta)
1/2 c. fresh ricotta (if you can get it, the cheese dudes who sell the Winchester Farms goudas at the H-wood Farmers Market have the best fresh ricotta in town)
3-4 strips of bacon, more meaty than fatty OR 1/4 c. pancetta
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
Garlic (half a dozen cloves if roasted or 2 chopped cloves if raw)
Basil (we didn't have any, so we left it out)
Salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, to taste

Cook up the penne. Reserve a few tablespoons of cooking liquid for sauce. Slice the bacon/pancetta into small strips. Sautee. Remove when they've reached your desired level of crispy. Discard all but 2 tsp. bacon/pancetta fat. Use this to cook raw garlic in on medium flame. Once garlic has browned (1-2 mins), add the cherry tomatoes. Cook 1 minute, then add in pasta, bacon/pancetta and a bit of the reserved cooking liquid. Cook another minute. Take off flame and pour into a large bowl. Add the ricotta and stir, adding more cooking liquid if you want a saucier sauce. Add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. Serve with a few shavings of parmesan if you're a cheese whore like myself.

Pork Chops Stuffed with Green Tomato Chutney, Spinach and Goat Cheese
adapted from a recipe by Giada de Laurentiis

2 tbsp. olive oil, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c. green tomato chutney OR 6 sun-dried tomatoes, diced
1-10 oz. bag of frozen spinach OR 2-3 cups fresh spinach, sauteed
1/2 tsp. salt, plus more for seasoning
1/2 tsp. black pepper, plus more for seasoning
1/4 tsp. thyme, fresh or dried
1/4 c. (2 oz.) goat cheese
1/3 c. reduced fat cream cheese or 1/4 c. non-fat greek yogurt
4-4oz. center cut pork chops
1 1/2 c. chicken broth (or, if you're Noah and I, the duck broth you've had in the freezer for while)
1/2 lemon, zested
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. Dijon mustard

Warm 1 tbsp. olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomato chutney, spinach, salt, pepper and thyme. Cook until combined, about 2 more minutes. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl. Add the goat cheese and the cream cheese or greek yogurt. Stir to combine and set aside.

Use a sharp knife to cut a pocket into the thickest portion of the pork chop. Stuff each pocket with 1/4 of the spinach and tomato mixture and close the pork around the stuffing. Season the outside of the pork with salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, combine the chicken broth, lemon zest, lemon juice and mustard.

Warm the remaining 1 tbsp. olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot add the pork. Cook until golden and cooked through 4-7 minutes a side (ours took longer as the pork was quite thick). Transfer the pork to a side dish and tent with foil to keep warm. Add the chicken broth mixture to the skillet over medium high heat and deglaze the pan, scraping up the cooked pork bits as the broth simmers. Reduce by half to make a light sauce. Spoon some over the pork before serving, putting the rest in a gravy bowl (or, if you're Noah and I, a crappy, chipped ramekin) for spooning over as you eat.

An Almond Cake for the Playoffs

2009-01-20T18:49:00.000-08:00

Sunday was a tragic day in our house, as the Ravens fell for the third time this season to the Steelers. Well, more tragic for Noah, but since I'm still getting over the Colts early exit and the fact that the Niners only won half a dozen games this year, I can kind of sympathize. And it all had to happen in front of many of our friends (who themselves were mourning the loss by the Eagles earlier in the day). But, to paraphrase someone who possibly paraphrased Marie Antoinette, let them eat cake.
Oh, things made from almond paste and/or marzipan, how I love thee. Let me count the ways - candy, cookies, croissants and... cake. I've been letting the idea for this cake percolate for a while, ever since I found a lovely can of high quality almond paste at an Italian deli in the San Gabriel Valley (during the Great Bacon Party Errand Extravaganza). And when my sister and mom sent me some preserved apricots and apricot jam from Stacy's tree this summer, well, the idea started to get a little clearer. Then on Saturday, two days after oatmeal cookie making, I was just like - screw it. My waistline, I mean. I wanted some damned almond cake.

I scoped out a few recipes in my cookbooks, but like the oatmeal cookie recipe serach, everything proved too complicated or fattening or crazy ingredient procuring difficult. I searched for recipes online and found one at the Odense site (they make almond paste, but not the kind I was using). I was especially drawn to the "Butterless" part of the recipe, as most recipes I looked at had two sticks involved in the cake baking. And dude, almond paste has plenty of fat as it is, two additional sticks of butter seemed like seriously greasy overkill.

I made very few adjustments to the recipe - I added 2-3 tablespoons of Stacy & mom's apricot jam to the batter, and to compensate for that density I added another tablespoon or two of flour. That's it. I also didn't grate the almond paste as the brand I bought was incredibly soft and didn't seem to need grating to incorporate into the batter, but I'll leave that part in the instructions, in case yours proves unwieldly. Oh yes, and instead of dusting the cake with confectioners sugar, I used more of the apricot jam, thinned with almond liqueur and a touch of sugar, then microwaved for 30 seconds to create a glaze. It was delicious, especially because the homemade jam was nice and chunky with apricots. High five, mom and Stacy! And high five, me.

Note: I ended up freezing a few remaining slices of this cake for future enjoyment. I'll let you know how that works out.

Butterless Almond Cake
from the Odense website

7 oz. almond paste, grated if hard
1/4 c. sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature (mine were still cold)
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
2-3 tbsp. apricot jam* (My addition, you could probably happily substitute raspberry jam if that's what does it for you)
Optional: confectioners sugar or Apricot Glaze (above) for dusting/glazing

Pre-heat the oven to 350˚F. Grease 9" round pan. Line bottom of pan with wax paper (I used parchment paper). Grease paper.

Add almond paste, sugar and eggs (and jam, if using) to a mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until well combined, then turn to high and mix for 3 minutes. Add flour and salt to almond mixture and mix on low speed until just combined. Pour batter into greased, parchmented pan and bake for 20-22 minutes (my cold oven took about 28 mins) or until a toothpick comes out of the middle cleanly.

Cool cake in pan on wire rack for 15 mins. Invert on plate or wire rack, peel off wax paper. Invert cake back onto wire rack, so top doesn't get lined, to finish cooling. Dust with confectioners sugar (or glaze with Apricot Glaze) if desired. You could also pair it with fresh summer berries and whipped cream.

And Now I'm Obsessed with Urban Chickens

2009-01-20T18:16:00.000-08:00

So through a very convoluted chain that started with voting in the Well Fed Network Food Blog awards (one of my favorite bloggers is nominated), I suddenly found myself falling into the world of Urban Chicken Farming. Falling in love that is.

Okay, I think I may have mentioned this before, but I've always wanted to be a farmer. Like, you know that test they make you take in high school that's supposed to tell you what you should be when you grow up? Mine gave me two options - writer or farmer. Currently fulfilling the former, dreaming of fulfilling the latter. Noah and I often talk about retiring to some kind of goat/sheep farm and making cheese once we get bored with the entertainment industry (or, you know, filthy rich). But today I was reading about a bunch of Angelenos who are already doing the farm thing, in their urban backyards. And it made me really, really jealous.

I want a chicken coop! I want farm fresh eggs in my own back yard. I want adorable little chicks (which I learned here, don't stay chicks for long). How long until Noah and I can afford our own house? Because you know our animal-phobic landlords will not even let us think about chicken coop-ing it up here (they always deny our yearly request for a dog, so chickens would probably make them lose their shit).

I'm not one to root for the current economic downturn to continue, but if it means we can buy a house, and a chicken coop, sooner rather than later. Well...

Great Frakkin' Cookies

2009-01-18T10:19:00.001-08:00

Friday's premiere of the final season of Battlestar Galactica was a great excuse to make some oatmeal raisin cookies. We'd be watching the premiere at our friend Jeremy's house with a bunch of friends, so the cookies wouldn't be tempting Noah and I for weeks (okay, days). But I had yet to find the ultimate oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, so flipped through my plethora of cookbooks. None of the recipes sounded totally awesome to me, so I went to my go-to recipe site online - Epicurious.
I like Epicurious because it collects recipes from Gourmet and Bon Appétit, as well as publishing some site-specific recipes. But its main draw for me is the in-depth user reviews people post. It did not take me long to find a well reviewed, adaptable recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I switched up some stuff right off the bat - I was out of purple raisins (actually, I'm just hoarding them for my week-day morning Steel Cut Oats breakfast) so I subbed in golden ones. I also swapped out and reduced the white sugar in the recipe for turbandino, which added a nice crunch. I used half whole wheat flour, half all-purpose and I killed the dates in the recipe, which were frequently sighted by reviewers as being too sweet and/or overpowering in the recipe. I also did half with walnuts and half without due to nut-allergic friends.

The results - A Big Fat Hit! Craig claimed to have eaten five, Sharra ate at least two and took home a baggie full. The kids who hang out on our front porch got first crack at them and all asked for the recipe for their parents to make later. I'd call that a resounding recipe success.
Oatmeal Cookies with Raisins, Dates and Walnuts
submitted to Bon Appetit by Charmaine Haravey of Niwot, CO - July 2003

2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 c. whole wheat flour, 1 c. all purpose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp. cloves * (My addition)
1/4 tsp. nutmeg* (My addition)

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (I used 2 sticks butter and omitted the vegetable shortening below)
1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening, room temperature
1 cup sugar (I subbed in 1/2 c. turbandino raw sugar)
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup honey (I upped to 1/3 c. but would probably reduce back to original measurement)
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup raisins (I used golden raisins, which taste a touch citrusy. In a good way.)
1 cup chopped pitted dates (I omitted)
1 cup chopped walnuts (I halved, as I used them in only half the cookies)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with foil; butter foil. Blend first 5 ingredients in medium bowl.

Using electric mixer, beat butter, vegetable shortening, and both sugars in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in honey, eggs, and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats, raisins, dates, and walnuts. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls onto prepared sheets, spacing mounds 2 inches apart. Flatten cookies slightly.

Bake cookies until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cool completely on sheets. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)

* I think you could easily make some tasty substitutions in the recipe. Maybe 1 c. dried cherries and 1 c. dark chocolate chips (you'll probably want to reduce brown sugar to 3/4 c. to compensate for the sweetnesss). You could also do dried cranberries and add some orange zest. Or maybe a combo of chocolate and peanut butter chips (again, decrease the brown sugar and probably omit the turbandino entirely). The possibilities are endless. And the recipe is good enough to try them all.

Going, Going...

2009-01-02T09:40:00.001-08:00

It's our last night in Paris and we sit here waiting for our landlord to show up (do you call someone you're renting from for only two weeks a landlord?) and give us back our deposit after being assured we didn't pull a rock-star-on-a-bender on his place before heading off to our final dinner at Chez Michel in the 10th.

Oh crap, is it really almost over?!?! There's so much we didn't do - the Louvre (Noah's still never been), walk through the Jardin des Plantes, drink a cafe express at either Deux Magots or Cafe Flore, visit the Monde Arabe and the Quai Branly, eat sweetbreads (where, I ask, were the damn sweetbreads???). And WE MISSED OUT ON SO MANY PLACES TO EAT (Bistrot Paul Bert, the closed for the holidays but much loved by us L'Ami Jean, Riboldingue, etc...). Not that we starved - we've practically eaten ourselves to death - but in Paris, as in any good food city, there just isn't enough time to hit up every place that sounds like a can't miss restaurant.
There are other things, too, that we forgot to do in time - grab some caramels with fleur de sel for Abby, who would truly appreciate their awesomeness; see if I could get the girl at the fromagerie to vacuum pack (aka sous vide) a huge hunk of their to-die-for buerre sale (Breton butter with sea salt that is better than sex); find a mini crepe/egg pan for Noah at Dehillerin; get cooler gifts for my dad; find the perfect black purse that no one in America will have and all my friends will envy.

But there's one thing I did remember - one last baguette from Eric Keyser. I'm taking that baby on the plane with me and it will get me through the 13 hours of crap plane food and crying babies and chatty seatmates. Seriously, I want to eat it right now. Aw, dammit...

Well, there's always next time.

Chocolate Tiramisu

2009-01-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

This recipe comes from Giada deLaurentis. We made it for Christmas dinner and it turned out really well and was very delicious. The key is to have really stiff lady fingers that won't get too soggy and to have the right size pan to make it in. But it's really easy and very yummy. Debra asked for the recipe, so here it is...

Ingredients

6 ounces container mascarpone cheese
2/3 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
Chocolate Zabaglione, recipe follows
2 1/2 cups espresso coffee, warmed
24 crisp ladyfinger cookies (recommended: Savoiardi)
Unsweetened cocoa powder, for garnish
Dark chocolate shavings, for garnish

Directions

Place the mascarpone cheese in a large bowl and set aside. With an electric mixer, beat the cream and 1/4 cup of the sugar in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the mascarpone. Then fold in the chilled Chocolate Zabaglione. Cover and refrigerate.

Whisk the warmed espresso and the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar in another medium bowl until blended. Line a 9 1/4 by 5 by 2 3/4-inch metal loaf pan with plastic wrap, allowing the plastic to extend over the sides. Working with 1 cookie at a time, dip 8 cookies into the espresso, and arrange in a single layer side by side over the bottom of the prepared pan.

Spoon 1/3 of the mascarpone mixture over the cookies to cover. Repeat dipping 8 of the cookies in the espresso and layering the cookies and remaining mascarpone mixture 2 more times. Dip the remaining 8 cookies in the espresso and arrange side by side atop the tiramisu. Press lightly to compact slightly (the last layer will extend above the pan sides). Cover the tiramisu with plastic and refrigerate at least 6 hours.

Unwrap the plastic from atop the tiramisu. Invert the tiramisu onto a platter. Remove the plastic. Sift the cocoa over the tiramisu, and with a vegetable peeler or sharp knife, make dark chocolate shavings and sprinkle over top.

Chocolate Zabaglione:

2 tablespoons whipping cream, or heavy cream

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

4 large egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup dry Marsala

Pinch salt

Add cream and chocolate to a heavy small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the chocolate chips are melted and smooth. Set aside and keep warm.

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, Marsala, and salt in a large glass bowl until blended. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, but do not allow the bottom of the bowl to touch the water. Whisk the egg mixture over the simmering water until it is thick and creamy, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Using a large rubber spatula, fold the melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Cover and refrigerate to chill completely.

Bon Année

2008-12-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

Bon Année from Paris. By some crazy bit of luck, the dinner reservation we had tonight ended up being in the 7th (where the Eiffel Tower resides) and not in the 5th, as I had thought. And not just anywhere in the 7th, but two blocks from The Lady herself. And when we found ourselves walking out of the restaurant at 10 minutes to midnight, it was pretty easy to figure out where we were heading.

Check out the (for some reason now audio-free) video above, as the clock strikes twelve, the fireworks go off and The Lady turns from blue (her color during France's EU presidency, which ended at midnight) to her regular golden white-ish hue.

Happy New Year!

Long live the Queen

2008-12-31T13:33:00.001-08:00

While it's snowing in Cambridge, NY, it's blowing here in Baltimore. Sixty mile an hour winds are predicted with temperatures in the 20's... too cold for going to fireworks so we are spending a cozy evening by the fire. Each of us chose a favorite food to bring in so we are having quite an eclectic dinner... ribs from The Corner Stable (best in Baltimore), crab cakes, Three Cheese Pizza, and for Gabe wings from Cluck-U in Towson. Then I made this flourless chocolate cake. It's a favorite Julia Child's recipe called Reine de Saba. The almonds on the side didn't work too well though... should have used crushed almonds to dust the sides. But the chocolate buttercream icing will be to die for. We are topping it all off with sparkling juice in honor of Gabe's eight months of sobriety. A much better New Year's than one year ago for sure. I echo Debra in wishing all of you a very happy, peaceful, and joy filled new year.

New Year's Eve Day in Cambridge, NY

2008-12-31T07:51:00.000-08:00

"...do, do, do, do out my back door!"

Last year, 20-inches of snow fell on New Year's Eve and it looks like this year may top that. I'm loving the snowfall but not the shoveling. It's winter in Cambridge, NY an we always love a good snow. I've got the cross-country skis waxed and ready and the snow shoes are geared-up. If you're going to live in snow country, you may as well learn to love it and get out and play.

Happy New Year to Noah and Sarah in Paris; Chuck, Gretchen, Stacy and Brian in the San Francisco area; Robin, Greg and Gabe in Baltimore; and all the folks that enjoy life, where ever you live.

PURPLE PRIDE

2008-12-28T16:26:00.001-08:00

I JUST HAD TO POST THIS... GO RAVENS!!!!!!! MIAMI HERE WE COME

THE RAVENS WILL TOTALLY RULE THE DOLPHINS!!!

The Most Awesome Christmas Lights Ever

2008-12-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

Noah shot these Christmas lights over in the Marais on Christmas Night. Well, technically it was very early on Boxing Day (2 am or so). Please ignore the silly drunk people at the end and focus on the awesome lights in the beginning.

Christmas Day in Paris, Continued

2008-12-25T18:10:00.001-08:00

Just a few scenes from our Christmas Day in Paris. Above is the first shot of the morning, taken at the cafe while we drank un express on rue Montorgueil. Everyone was running to the bakery for their daily baguette(s). We'd grabbed one at the very end of the day before from Eric Kayser. His natural leavening made for a bread that was still fresh and tasty for this evening's meal.
After our cafe trek, we came home for the impromptu variation on Noah's family tradition for breakfast - bagels and lox. Here it was lox and a baguette with a fresh chevre from the local fromagerie. Have I told you about the five kinds of cheese in our fridge right now? Yum. There's the fresh chevre, a bleu, a Vacherin, a Brin d'Amour and another goat cheese that is delicious. We're kind of in heaven.

After breakfast we took a nice three hour walk around Paris, including a stop at the ice skating rink in front of the Mairie in the 4th. We didn't go skating, but it looked like a blast.
Down at the rink there were a bunch of street vendors selling roasted chestnuts and I had to have some. They were good, but I think it was more the ambience - a crisp Christmas day - than the quality of the roasting that made them so good.
From there we headed over to the Ile de la Cite and the Ile St.-Louis. This tree was in front of Notre Dame, amidst the frenzy of tourists and rush of "ladies in long skirts" aka local con artists. A quick trip through the gardens provided a much less frenzied view of the church - a view I prefer anyway. We wandered a bit further, over to Ile St.-Louis and through its beautifully decorated streets before heading back up the Marais and over to the 2nd.

It was time to prepare dinner, as our friend Chris was coming to eat with us. He too decided to ditch Los Angeles in favor of a more traditionally weathered Christmas spot. We put together a fine dinner, despite a total lack of skills when it came to starting/lighting/using the oven and burners in our rental. The menu: Cote de Beouf, Brussels sprouts with lardons, salad, cheese and this beauty:
Okay, the picture does not do it justice - it's a Bouche de Noël from Gerard Mulot over in the Marais. Dark chocolate, with caramelized almonds, it was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

After dinner we headed out, back over to the Marais for a drink. What turned into many drinks. Hence this post going up at all hours, after a night of boozing. But damn, it was fun.

A Doggie Christmas

2008-12-25T07:24:00.000-08:00

Even Cassie and Cole got into the spirit although Cole was terrified of the flash on the camera and kept hiding behind the couch... thus more pictures of Cassie then Cole.

We enjoyed our stockings and of course the Judao-christian
tradition of bagels and lox for Xmass breakfast... then it was
off to the gifts under the tree... Greg wrapped up a big box to look like a fed ex delivery and filled it with doggie treats for the pups... they thought they were in heaven. Everyone had a wonderful Christmas and got just what they hoped for... Greg will be very busy building the next World War II fleet (you don't call planes a fleet, do you?) and I will be reading for several months... Debra will be cooking stock and middle Eastern delights in her new Tagine and Stockpot. Gabe has lots of music and books to amuse himself with. We here in Finksburg hope you all are having a wonderful time. More posts after dinner...

Dickens Village... A Church Family Tradition

2008-12-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

What the Dickens... this year we added to our collection. This scene is all about the neighborhood... it hosts Scrooge's house, Marley's place and of course the village ice rink with the coffee sellers. Central to all is the Conservatory... definitely one of our favorites. The setting up is more than half the fun and takes a few days but we are getting more and more adventurous and this fall I plan on taking a class on how to display and build more areas to show off the collection.

This year we added a lot to our retail village with the addition of the shipbuilders house and the choclatier complete with the horse drawn wagon for delivery. Of course there is the gin cart too and the two gentlemen (I use the word loose ly) who have had a bit too much ale at the inn.

The villages which are lit up at night add so much atmosphere to the living an d dining room. It's one of the things I love most about decorating the house. One day you can all fight over who inherits these treasures... for now just enjoy from afar!

Joyeaux Noël a Paris!

2008-12-25T00:53:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night... er, day.

Scenes from Paris

2008-12-23T16:30:00.001-08:00

We arrived in Paris yesterday afternoon, minus a wallet (mine, which I left at home after re-arranging a bunch of stuff in my purse last minute) but on time and with all our luggage! Trust me, this is a rare feat for Noah and I when it comes to our foreign travels. We checked into our apartment in the 2nd arrondissement and then set out for a quick tour of the neighborhood. We chose the 2nd because on our last trip we fell in love with the local market street, rue Montorgueil (pictured above). It's mostly pedestrian and full of patisseries, fromageries, boucheres and marchand de vin.
One look in the window of all the patisseries and I knew we had to get ourselves a traditional bouche de noel (aka yule log, only so, so much swankier) for Christmas dinner. So this afternoon (day 2) we took a trip over to the 3rd, to one of David Lebovitz's recommended patisseries - Gerard Mulot. We bought the Feuille d'Automne, a dark chocolate and carmelized almond delight.
And since it's Christmas, we had to have a tree! I bought a tiny, plastic one at Urban Outfitters and stashed it in my suitcase as a surprise for Noah, along with a string of multi-colored lights. The mini-tree (oh yeah, it's classy and plastic and white) sits on our living room table, the lights are strung up on the flower box outside our windows.
And tonight, we took the metro over to our most favoritest restaurant in the world. Literally. Hiramatsu is a Michelin starred French restaurant that was established by a famous Japanese chef. The food there is full of French flavors, but with a deft (and light) Japanese hand. We had dinner there in May 2006 during our honeymoon and it was #1 on the list for this visit. We were not disappointed - the Delices Gastronomique (chef's tasting menu) was superb. The highlights this time included a safron risotto in a bouillabaisse with pan fried cod. The fish was perfectly cooked and the flavors of the risotto and the bouillabaisse were brilliant. Our other favorite was a perfectly cooked young duckling breast served over chantrelles cooked in a foie gras cream with black truffles as an accent. Decadent and dreamy. The desserts (one used as a palate cleanser, a combination of frozen and granita'd citrus fruits) were equally as stunning and will probably have my lactose intolerant self paying at some point tonight for my sins. It was worth it!

The picture above was taken during the metro trip home. It's an advertisement for Orangina, which they sell in vending machines at most stops. It cracked me up and creeped me out in equal parts.

The Perfect Christmas Treat for the Neighbors!

2008-12-22T05:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the folks at Cooking Light, here's an alternative to Christmas cookies. It's simple to make and tastes amazing. Best of all, it's low calorie and only 3 Weight Watcher points per slice.

VANILLA BUTTERMILK POUND CAKE

13.5 ounces all purpose flour (about 3.5 cups)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1.5 cups low-fat buttermilk
Cooking spray (Pam Baking works great)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Weight or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir with a whisk.
3. Combine sugar, butter and vanilla in a large bowl; beat with mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and buttermilk to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
4. Spoon batter into 5 (5-3/4 x 3- 1/4 inch)pans, coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center coms out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from pans. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Yield: 5 loaves, 6 servings/loaf.

You can also prepare cakes in two (8 x 4-inch) loaf pans. Bake for one hour or until done.

Serving size: 1 slice

Calories : 144
Fat: 5.1g
Protein: 2.2g
Carb: 22.3g
Fiber: 0.3g

Menu For Hope 5

2008-12-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many of you have already heard about Chez Pim's Menu For Hope, a raffle that food bloggers around the world help put on to raise funds for charity. But just in case you haven't, or if you still haven't donated, here's the scoop:

This year's raffle is to benefit the World Food Program's school lunch initiative in Lesotho, Africa. Last year they helped the WFP set up this program that benefits kids in one of the poorest parts of Africa, while also helping local farmers - all of the food is bought locally.

For every $10 donated, you get a raffle ticket which can be applied to any of the multitude of donated gifts from bloggers around the world. You can get wine dinners, kitchen appliances, personal guided tours, not to mention the plethora of food and wine gift packages put together by people who actually love food (and wine). You can see a master list of prizes here.

It's a worthy cause, it's tax deductible and it comes with the chance to win some amazing prizes. So if you've got an extra $10 (or more), head on over and check it out.

10 Days Before Christmas

2008-12-14T09:07:00.001-08:00

Living just 5 miles from the Vermont border , winter comes early to Cambridge, NY. We almost alwyas have a white Christmas, but this year we're having an Ice Christmas. 1.5 inches coated the area on Friday as temperatures dropped into the single digits. I'm sure it sounds awful to all the Californians, but the ice and light combine to make a magical kingdom outside my office door.

This apple tree is the waiting area of the miriad of birds that come to my various feeders. All the usual suspects are in attendance, black capped chickadees, titmouse, cardinals, nuthatches, finches (purple and house) but nothing can match the wonder and variety of woodpeckers that stop by.

One of the visiting woodpeckers is this male downy. He usually comes in the morning and afternoon. In between, a hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, and on occasion a redheaded stop in. The large pileated stays away, but I hear his pecking in the woods.

Bird watching entertains both me and my two cats. After local skiing and being able to snow shoeing right out my back door, watching the birds is one of the reasons I love living in Cambridge (especially in the winter).

What sort of wildlife roams in your neck of the woods?

O Christmas Cookie, O Christmas Cookie

2008-12-13T15:43:00.001-08:00

There are about a million cookies you can make for Christmas every year and most years I think my mom tried to make them all. It was pretty great, especially for my sugar deprived sister and I. Yeah, we had one of those health conscious moms who try and convince you that carob and chocolate are TOTALLY the same thing. Other sugar restraints in our childhood included a ban on sugar cereals (anything more than 6g of sugar per serving), bubble gum ice cream and soda 99.6% of the time. Today, I appreciate mom's efforts to not turn us into obese children. But when your best friend has a Nutella sandwich on white bread for lunch every day and you have tuna, well... you get what I'm saying.

So the holidays were those rare times we knew we'd be getting some sugar in our lives. Every year we'd comb through the recipes and convince mom she should make some if not all of the following: gingerbread persons (mom is also a feminist), nutmeg logs, sugar cookies with flavored icing, candy cane cookies, lebchuken, rum balls and the cookies you find here today - Crescent Cookies.
These guys are fairly traditional. I've seen them on food blogs, food tv, in food magazines and in the recipe cards of several friends. They're sometimes called Russian Tea Cookies or Mexican Wedding Cookies, in their many variations. You'll often see them in a round shape, but mom always made them into crescents, hence the name. The recipe was passed down to her from my father's aunt and originated with my great grandmother. So these babies have history. So much so that they were included in the cookbook I made for family members as a Christmas gift last year.

They're quick, not super sweet and don't require a period of refrigeration. Perfect for all you busy bakers out there. And while they may not scream "Christmas!!!" the way gingerbread does, they'll quickly find a place in your holiday baking repetoire. I guarantee it.

Crescent Cookies
recipe from Great Grandmother Kucserka

1/2 lb butter (2 sticks)
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. water
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. chopped pecans (I substituted walnuts because we had several bags of them in the freezer. You can also use almonds or hazelnuts. You can chop by hand or use a food processor.)

Cream the butter; blend in sugar, vanilla and water. Sift together flour and salt; stir into butter mixture. Add nuts and mix thoroughly. Use portions about the size of a walnut, roll into crescent shape. Bake at 325 degrees farenheit for about 20 minutes. While warm, roll in or sprinkle with powedered sugar.

Persimmon Drying - Hachiya

2008-12-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

We are drying persimmons this year from Gretchen and Chuck's Tree. We watched a TV show about it and got super inspired. Also we have been looking into it online for a while. Here is what we did,

1) Cut hachiya persimmons from tree when they are still hard, but have turned orange in color. Keep the T shape of the stem, for the hanging phase.

2) Peeled the persimmons

3) Attached strings around the T's

4) Hang them to dry.

5) 1st - Five days in the sun (take inside if it is very moist out or raining). We have had fog at night, so are bringing them in.

6) 2nd - 2 weeks or so, massage each persimmon for about 30 seconds. This helps bring out the natural sugars. If it feels like a water balloon about to pop, then skip massaging those ones for a day or so.

7) 3rd - 2 -6 weeks - Allow them to finish drying indoors

8) Should look like a crystalized shrunken version of itself in the end.

9) Eat and enjoy, be careful of any inside seeds when eating. I think there is one bigger one.

So, this is the first time we have tried this. We built a rack with wheels so we can put then in and out of our garage. Chuck and Gretchen are trying this too, but under the eves of the roof on the house. It will be interesting to see how this all come out in the end. It is an old Japanese tradition to dry persimmons this way. Cool thing to do with all that beautiful fruit that is so hard to eat all up once they go off.

Stacy and Brian

Dried Figs and a Champagne Cocktail

2008-12-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

You know when you just have one of those days? A day where you solve a problem, then have a curve ball thrown into the mix, forcing you to re-solve it. Over and over again. Yeah, it was one of those days for me. All I wanted to do was go home and eat my left over salad and sandwich from lunch (Noah's got a work dinner tonight) and have a glass of wine. White, preferably.

But all that was in the fridge was a bottle of champagne left over from Thanksgiving. Well, why the hell not? And if you're going to go, go whole hog and make a champagne cocktail, dammit. I love the tres sophisticated cocktail. It was great, but it got even better when I pulled out a couple of dried figs for dessert.

This summer, figs became the fruit I lusted after. Last summer it was apricots, but this year the fig harvest just seemed to be exceptional and I could not get enough of them. The second flush (each tree delivers two crops, one in late July-ish and the other in late September-ish) was worth the wait, smaller and sweeter and just plain more full-flavored than the first. And man was I sad to see them go. But the dried figs that my favorite figuer sells (yeah, I made that word up) are a good winter substitute.

If you need a little pick me up, try this petite dessert out. Okay, sue me, we're leaving for Paris in less than three weeks and oui just can't wait. Hehehehe.

Champagne Cocktail
by ?
1 glass champagne, chilled
1 sugar cube
bitters

Douse the sugar cube in bitters, drop it into and empty champagne glass and fill with champagne!

Post-Post Thanksgiving Leftovers

2008-11-29T21:39:00.000-08:00

Oh Thanksgiving, I'm already plotting your return next year. What will I do differently? Well, I'll definitely do less broth and a drier bread in the Artichoke Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing. We'll probably add another veggie, as there was far too much starch on the table this year. Oh yeah, and I won't lose my wedding rings. That would be nice.

But the traditional smoked turkey? That's coming back. Because two days later, I still can't get enough. I've had straight up cold turkey, sandwiches, salads, you name it. But this turkey salad sandwich created by Noah really takes the cake, er, sandwich.

Turkey Salad Sandwich
by Noah

3-5 c. Thanksgiving turkey, cold
a third of a small jar of mayonnaise
3 shallots, finely chopped
2-3 tbsp. Dijon mustard
salt
pepper
tomato
spinach
Havarti cheese (optional, I opted out)
bacon
bread or rolls

Mix all but the last five ingredients in a bowl. Cut the bread or roll to desired sandwich size and scoop as much of the turkey salad onto it as you desire. Top with tomato, spinach, cheese and as many slices of bacon as you feel comfortable eating only two days after the gorge-fest known as Thanksgiving (in my case one slice, in Noah's it was two).

En. Yoy.

Feast from the East

2008-11-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a sample of the Kissel family Thanksgiving buffet before we all dug in and destroyed the beautiful dishes. It was scrumshiss to the last drop... turkey, stuffing (two types; oyster and plain), company carrots(thanks to Jen and Ben), home made mac and cheese (thanks to Amanda and Scott), green beans (thanks to Robin), corn pudding with a kick (thanks to Kathe), sweet potatoes, smashed potatoes (thanks to Debra)...Dinner for 18 is a major effort but well worth the work to have everyone together. We're about to sit down to dessert so I'm signing off and hoping your feast is going as well as ours...Miss you all more than you can ever know...Love,Mom & Auntie D

Turkey Day...Early Morning...Los Angeles

2008-11-27T07:29:00.000-08:00

Not to be outdone by Robin, Deb and the gang, here are some pics from Turkey Day LA. This is the strawberry rhubarb pie for tonight (mom's recipe, to follow) that I made Tuesday night. 'Cause I'm on top of it like that.
Isn't it pretty in close up? It's my favorite pie in the world (Pumpkin? Pass). They only had rhubarb a few times at the Farmers Market this year, so I snatched some up and froze it when I saw it, in preparation for this day. Literally today, as I knew I wanted a strawberry rhubarb pie on Thanksgiving the minute last year's dinner ended. Yeah, man, it's that good.
And this is our smoker, smoking away on the turkey, a 20 lb. beast that we barely squeezed into the tiny barrel. Trust me, I had words with the lady when I picked it up yesterday at the Santa Monica Farmers Market (I'd ordered a 16 lb. one). Luckily it fit, otherwise our smoked turkey would have come in two pieces.

My dad's made smoked turkey for Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember, it's the only way I can eat turkey today (and my mom and sister have promised to post pics from their T-Day smoking extravaganza as well). We brine ours, using Alton Brown's recipe which is crazy easy and really good. So not only is it moist due to smoking and brining, but it's got a nice sweetness to it as well. Anyway, when I married Noah I made him take over the smoking duties for our Thanksgivings down in LA. He's pretty darn good at it, too.

And did I mention we've both been up since 5:20 am working on the turkey, starting the Almost No Knead Bread, and, of course, putting up this post. We'll try and check in throughout the day, so y'all can see what we're up to.

The Stupid Swiss Cuts Onions...

2008-11-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

Hey, are those Onion Goggles you're wearing???

Thanksgiving Greetings from Cincinnati

2008-11-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

We are gathered together in Cincinnati to enjoy a family Thanksgiving. Andres has come from Switzerland, Debra from New York State, the Kissels of Cincinnati and the Kushners (Amanda's family) from Cleveland. Here are some pictures from the morning preparations to show how we are getting ready for the holiday. Larry, aka The Pieman of Cinci, outdid himself this year as you will notice in the pictures. The chocolate cake (recipe to follow) is absolutely to die for and there are two kinds of pumpkin pie, a killer apple pie with little apple pie babies, and mince meat pie as well. There is also a picture of the Stupid Swiss cutting up the onions wearing the famous "onion goggles". Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful holiday... send pictures so we can all share.

Back Story on Haricots Verts...

2008-11-16T05:15:00.000-08:00

Every year we travel to lovely Cincinnati to have Thanksgiving with the Kissel clan and about 5 years ago I made an old family favorite... green beans provencale a la Julia... they were an immediate hit with everyone and became the dish I was required to make every year... the more the better (we double it and make a whole lot). So about three years ago I was making my dish and after they simmered for the 8-10 minutes I picked up the large skillet Kathe had me use and the handle broke off and the beans spilled all over the kitchen floor. After the 5 second rule was invoked we saved only a small portion of the dish. As a result Kathe bought a very high end All Clad deep dish skillet for me and I loved it so much I added one to my own kitchen. Now we never worry about spilling the beans!!!!

Haricots Verts a la Provencale

2008-11-16T05:06:00.000-08:00

Haricots Verts A La Provencale

For 6 – 8 Servings

2 Cups thinly sliced onions

½ cup olive oil

A large enamel or other skillet large enough to hold everything

4-6 large firm ripe tomatoes (or you can very successfully use Delmonte canned tomatoes in oregano and balsamic vinegar… reserve the liquid and drain)

2-4 cloves mashed garlic

A medium herb bouquet (parsley, bay leaf, thyme, cloves(only 2)tied in cheesecloth or you can use the standard Simon and Garfinkle herbs (for those of you not up on your sixties folk that would be Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!)

¾ cup liquid (juice from the tomatoes plus water)

Salt and pepper to taste

3 lbs beans

Salt/pepper

¼ cup chopped parsley or mixture of green herbs (basil, savory, tarragon, parsley)

Cook the onions slowly in the olive oil until they are tender and translucent

Add tomatoes, garlic and herbs + liquid and salt and pepper ; cook 30 minutes then remove bouquet

While the tomatoes are cooking blanch the beans in 7-8 quarts of boiling salted water but drain them 3-4 minutes before they are tender. If you cook them ahead of time plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking so they don’t get soft. Toss them in the pan with the onions and tomatoes. Cover and simmer slowly for about 8 minutes. If any liquid remains cook it off. Toss in green herbs and serve.

Guilt Free Pumpkin Pie

2008-11-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

I'm a Weight Watcher and holidays scare me, but I've found a great way to beat the calorie blues for this Thanksgiving. Hungry Girl, cookbook and website, has lots of options for the holidays. Here's one I've tries that really passes the muster. So Thank you Hungry Girl, all credit goes to you for making Thanksgiving a sweet thing...

No one loves pumpkin as much as Hungry Girl does -- the fat orange fruit (yes, it's technically a fruit 'cuz it has seeds!) and HG have been BFFs forever. So it was inevitable that a fantastic pumpkin pie swap would come from the HG kitchen. Well, here it is. Grab a can of pumpkin and your trusty box of Fiber One, and get busy! We present to you HG's Too-Good-To-Deny Pumpkin Pie...

Photos from Hungry Girl

Ingredients:

For Crust
2 cups Fiber One bran cereal (original)
1/4 cup light whipped butter or light buttery spread (like Brummel & Brown); melted & mixed with 1 oz. water
3 tbsp. Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, granulated
1 tsp. cinnamon

For Filling
One 15-oz. can pure pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
One 12-oz. can evaporated fat-free milk
3/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, granulated
1/2 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters)
1/4 cup sugar-free maple syrup
1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
Optional Topping: Fat Free Reddi-wip

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a blender or food processor, grind Fiber One to a breadcrumb-like consistency. Combine crumbs with all other crust ingredients. Stir until mixed well. In an oven-safe 9-inch pie dish sprayed lightly with nonstick spray, evenly distribute mixture, using your hands or a flat utensil to firmly press and form the crust. Press it into the edges and up along the sides of the dish. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for the filling. Mix well. Pour mixture into pie crust. (Filling may be taller than the crust -- trust us, this is okay!) Bake pie in the oven for 45 minutes, and then remove it and allow to cool. Chill in the fridge for several hours (for best results, chill overnight). Cut into 8 slices, and if you like, top with Reddi-wip before serving! MAKES 8 SERVINGS

Serving Size: 1 slice
Calories: 133
Fat: 3g
Sodium: 236mg
Carbs: 28g
Fiber: 9g
Sugars: 8g
Protein: 6g

POINTS® value 2*

Cake with A-Plum

2008-11-13T19:25:00.001-08:00

I made this cake a few weeks back in the throes of my "We're going to Paris for Christmas, so let's eat French food" fit. It's from Ina Garten's Barefoot in Paris cookbook. I'm not usually into those Food Network AM ladies (Giada, Rachel, Ina, etc...), but this book has proved to be a solid source of good, easy, French (sometimes French-lite) recipes. And since we had a ton of end of the season plums, this seemed like a good recipe to use them in. I mean, who doesn't like cake?
As per usual, I tweaked the recipe a bit - subbing these Emerald plums for the purple "prunes" Ina asks for, as well as cutting them into slices and making this cool spiral pattern v. her idea of just halving them. This seemed like a prettier, not to mention more fork-friendly, way to go.
This is the end result. Noah and I had a few slices warm out of the oven and shared the rest with our friends a few days later at an Election Night party (told you this post was overdue). Everyone voted "yes" on Prop Plum Cake.

Oh yes, the fruit part seems to invite many, many variations. Ina suggests pears as an alternative. I think apples, persimmons and cherries would also be lovely. And I'm seriously considering a cranberry version for Thanksgiving.

Plum Cake "Tatin"
from Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temp, plus extra for greasing the dish.
10 to 12 purple "prune" plums, cut in half and pitted (I used 8 or so Emerald plums, cut into 1/8ths)
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar, divided
2 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1/3 c. sour cream (I used 1/3 c. non-fat greek yogurt)
1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest (I used grated grapefruit zest since we were out of lemons)
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
Confectioners' sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-inch glass pie dish and arrange the plums in the dish, cut side down (or in a circular pattern of slices, as I did).

Combine 1 c. of the granulated sugar and 1/3 c. water in a small saucepan and cook over high heat until it turns a warm amber color, about 360 degrees on a candy thermometer. Swirl the pan, but don't stir. Pour evenly over the plums.

Meanwhile, cream the 6 tablespoons of butter and the remaining 3/4 cup of granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy. Lower the speed and beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the sour cream, zest and vanilla and mix until combined. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and, with the mixer on low speed, add it to the butter mixture. Mix only until combined.

Pour the cake batter evenly over the plums and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes, then inverth the cake onto a flat plate. If a plum sticks, ease it out and replace it in the design on top of the cake. Serve warm or at temperature, dusted with confectioners' sugar.

Gates in the City

2008-11-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

A couple of the ironwork gates I pass on my weekly walk to the H-wood Farmers Market every Sunday. I don't think I ever really noticed them (or a lot of other things) until I brought my camera with me one morning a few weeks back.
I especially love these. They're getting me in the mood for France. T-minus 39 days...

Something More Important Than Food

2008-11-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

Like the majority of voting Americans last Tuesday I ended the day feeling pretty happy - my guy had won! Change was coming! Hope was on its way! On the west coast the election was called at 8pm and the celebrations commenced.

Except, as the night went on and the numbers started to come in on the CA Propositions, a sense of dread started to settle in amongst many of us. I'm talking, of course, about Prop 8. Perhaps I was naive, but I had really and truly believed at the start of the day that voters in this state (a state I love, a state I have always called home) would make the right choice. The choice to not limit the freedoms of other human beings. Naively I thought that in the midst of this presidential run, a run that seemed impossible even to the most optimistic in our not too distant past, that people would see the obvious parallels when it came to people's civil liberties and MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE.

I was wrong.

There are a million things I could say, but none of them are as eloquent as the argument Keith Olbermann makes. Take six minutes out of your day and watch. Maybe he can change your mind.

Chicken Soup for the Sickie

2008-11-06T22:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finally caught the nasty cold that Noah, his mom and stepdad (who visited last weekend) and seemingly most of the world has. And this weird thing happens when a) you have a cold and b) it's cold outside - you start to crave soup. I had Noah bring me home some french onion soup from The Corner (formerly Doughboys) yesterday. It was lovely. And also ginormous, so I got to have some more for lunch today. Sweet.

Later I remembered that I had the leftover bones 'n stuff from a chicken we roasted earlier this week still sitting in the fridge. Time to make stock! And not to, like, toot my own horn or anything, but I totally kicked this stock's ass. I guess for the first time I actually made an effort to not let it boil EVER in the process and the broth that it turned out was so far superior in color and flavor to anything I'd ever stocked before. I ended up eating a ton of it - alone, just stock. That's when you know a stock is good. And also that you are sick.

But plain broth alone does not a dinner make. And when Sherry and I were hiking in Runyon this morning she mentioned this turkey meatball and pasta soup I had made recently. Well, I wasn't really feeling turkey meatballs, but a skinless boneless chicken breast shredded and some noodles, carrots and celery sounded right up my alley.

And what makes a girl feel better than a bowl of soup and a glass of wine? Not much.

Chicken Noodle Soup a la Sarah
by Me, serves 1

2 c. chicken stock, preferably homemade
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 c. shredded chicken
1/3 c. dry pasta (I used these cool ring shaped ones, but orzo or other small noodles would work well, too)
salt and pepper to taste

Heat stock to a simmer. Add in everything else. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook until pasta is tender. Enjoy!

Beouf Bourguignon

2008-11-03T22:19:00.001-08:00

You may have heard Noah and I are going to Paris for Christmas and New Years. And we're kinda, sorta getting really freaking excited about it. So much so that we ended up making multiple French/French inspired dishes this weekend. Including a Beouf Bourguignon.

The recipe is from "Glorious Stew" by Dorothy Ivens, a cookbook I fondly remember on my mom's book shelves when I was growing up. She gave me a copy a few Christmases ago and I've wanted to make something from it forever. I finally got it together this weekend, just in time for a moderate temperature drop that made it feel quite fall-ish (for LA, which meant mid-70s).
And wow, A+ Ms. Ivens. Yes, of course, I tweaked the recipe a little, but it's simple (really, I promise) and tasty and we're still (happily) eating the copious leftovers.
Beouf Bourguignon
"Glorious Stew" by Dorothy Ivens

3 lbs. boned shoulder or chuck fillet of beef in 2 inch cubes (or beef stewing meat, which is what we got)
2 slices bacon, diced
2 tbsp. olive oil, more if needed
4-5 tbsp. butter, more if needed
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 c. cognac (optional)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp. salt
6-8 grinds pepper
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp. finely chopped parsely (I left it out)
2 c. dry red Burgundy, warmed (okay, admission, we used a cheap Bordeaux, which I guess technically makes it Beouf Bordeaux)
1-2 c. beef broth, warmed, more if needed
1 lb. mushrooms
24 small white onions (pearl)
3 carrots, chopped into chunks similar in size to mushrooms (not in the recipe, I just wanted 'em)

Turn oven to 450 degrees. Pull out a 3-4 quart casserole dish.

Dry meat thoroughly so it browns properly. In a skillet, cook the bacon in the hot oil and 2 tbsp. butter. When it is lightly browned, remove it with a slotted spoon to a heavy, lidded flameproof casserole. In the same skillet, brown the beef carefully on all sides, a few pieces at a time, removing them to the casserole as they are done. Turn on flame very low under the casserole.

Sprinkle the flour on the meat, toss gently and cook until four is absorbed. Place the casserole uncovered in the oven. Cook for 5 minutes, then toss the meat and cook 5 minutes more. This is to sear the meat thoroughly.

Return the casserole to the top of the stove and turn the oven down to 325 degrees. In a saucepan, warm the Cognac (if using) and ignite it with a match. Pour it, flaming, into the casserole, standing well back and shaking the casserole for a few seconds. Stop the flame by putting hte lid on for a moment. *Note - This is not considered to be part of the traditional Burgundian recipe, but more of a Parisian flourish added in restaurants there. I emitted it, due to a lack of cognac or acceptable substitute.

Mash the garlic with the salt. Remove the casserole lid and add all the seasonings (thyme, bay leaf, pepper and parsley). Pour the warmed wine and add enough warmed stock to barely cover the meat. Bring it all to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover casserole and place in oven, turning it down to 300 degrees. Cook for about 1 1/2 hours, or until meat is nearly tender. Check during cooking to make sure the liquid has not boiled away. Add hot water or more stock if needed. Degrease the dish once or twice by tipping pot and skimming off fat. Check seasoning.

Now for the vegetables. If mushrooms are larger than an inch or so in diameter, slice into halves or quarters. Peel onions and make a small cross in root to prevent them from separating (if using pearl onions, the easiest way to peel is by placing them in boiling water for 3 minutes and then peeling, a la tomatoes or peaches). Cut carrots into comprable chunks to onions and mushrooms.

Lightly saute the onions, carrots and mushrooms together in butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add to stew (when you hit the 1 1/2 hour in point). Cook for 30-45 minutes longer or until meat and vegetables are tender.

Halloween, Part One

2008-10-30T21:52:00.001-07:00

We went to a real, old fashioned pumpkin patch up in Ventura a few weekends back, during Abby's "Beach House Birthday Weekend". It was fab, a movie-perfect rural experience. They had a Pumpkin Chucker, people. I didn't pay the $5 to chuck one of the orange lovelies, but I did watch several of the squash grenades launched by others. I think I might have Noah build one of those things in our backyard...
There were several dozen varieties of pumpkins, squash and gourds for sale. We got one of the cool Ghost Pumpkins and this crazy thing called a Speckled Swan Gourd. Jealous?
Anyway, it all got me in the Halloween mood way early. And now it's almost, finally here. The kids in the neighborhood helped me set up the porch with all kinds of decorations today. Tomorrow night we're gonna be lame and not go out and party and instead stay home and pass out way too much candy to all the kids. Haven't decided whether or not to carve some of the pumpkins we have or not. Hmm... Guess you'll find out tomorrow.

Architectural Pic of the Day

2008-10-30T20:41:00.001-07:00

Another in the neighborhood wanderings series. About seven blocks from our place. This is the detailing at the top of a lovely, brick apartment building.

Brussels Sprouts Are The Best

2008-10-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

First off, please excuse the photo. Our real camera's battery was out of juice, so Noah took this picture on his Blackberry. I'm guessing the above photo isn't exactly the best way to persuade people that Brussels sprouts are, indeed, the best.

I honestly don't think I'd ever eaten them until a few years ago - both of my parents loathe (or I should say loathed) them. Until Brian made them for us one Thanksgiving. One bite and I was convinced, as were mom and dad. Perhaps it was the added bacon (or was it pancetta), because as we all know, PORK MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER. And Noah actually liked them, too, which is crazy since I still can't get him to let go of his broccoli phobia and broccoli is a million times less intimidating than Brussels sprouts. I guess that's how good a chef Brian is. Hmm, note to self - have Brian make something with broccoli next time we're in town...

Sunday I picked up some sprouts at the farmers market and had to make them, stat. They just looked that good. Plus Sunset magazine had a recipe for them in the October issue that I'd been dying to try. However, being the cooking tweaker that I am (does that make anyone else think I huff glue and bake cookies? I don't) I had to add in some of my favorite twists from Suzanne Goin's recipe in her "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" cookbook. Namely balsamic vinegar and some of the awesome bacon from the pork guy at the farmers market - think nice thick rashers, not that crappy stuff in the supermarket aisles.

It was perfect for the cool-ish evening (we've been having crisp nights, despite our 90 degree days in LA). Noah and I made it our main course, along with some leftover sourdough, fresh mozzarella, garden basil and tomatoes that we turned into a grilled panini. Yum!

Brussels Sprouts with Parmesan and Pine Nuts
Sunset magazine, October 2008

Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Add 2 tsp. minced garlic and 3/4 lb Brussels sprouts, trimmed and quartered; cook, stirring often, until softened, 8 minutes. Add 1/4 c. vegetable broth; cook until sprouts are just tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Add 2 tbsp. toaste pine nuts. Season to taste with kosher salt and black pepper. Sprinke with grated parmesan cheese.

London Angeles

2008-10-05T15:51:00.001-07:00

This is stop two on the "neighborhood tour" I started in yesterday's post.

About three blocks down and three blocks west of our little house in Hollywood you'll find these guys parked. Crazy, huh? It's like the UK came to town and nobody told me. Bastards!

I'm guessing they're parked in a prop car storage facility or some such place. Obviously not in the best working order, probably just available for background rental or something. Either that or there's some kind of wormhole that transported me to York (which is the stated destination on the closer bus).

For some reason when I was messing around with this picture the effect I used decided to give it rounded corners. It seemed appropriate with the tatty bus. Like my parents took the picture on a trip to England in the '70s. It reminds me of a bunch of photos they have of me as a child. Aww.

So, welcome to my crazy world - tropical gardens to double decker buses in less than six blocks. I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Next in the neighborhood tour... Amsterdam?

Tropical Southern California

2008-10-04T16:00:00.001-07:00

Noah and I went for a walk in our neighborhood the other day, twelve blocks or so, and only in looking back at the photos I took do I realize that those twelve blocks have no less than four distinct styles.

These pictures are from the first few blocks near our house. These bananas grow in front of a house less than a block away, one that's tumbling down and Craftsman in style. Not exactly where you'd imagine planting some banana (or are they plantain) trees.

This cool flower was growing at the base of the bananas. Looks tropical and a little alien at the same time. A less threatening version of the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.

Another block after that and we're in the heart of "newly built, vaguely Mediterranean" condo central. Yep, those places are going like hotcakes in this real estate market.

At least they have pretty flowers in the mini-courtyard outside. Like these:

Stay tuned for the next neighborhood style - '60s London. Aren't you, like, dying from curiosity?

Squashin' Good Time

2008-10-04T15:40:00.001-07:00

Recently I wanted to make a quick bite, something that would use up some yellow squash I had and wouldn't take forever to make.

I found a zucchini recipe in Alice Waters' "The Art of Simple Food", which happened to already be open and on my kitchen counter when the hunger struck. It called for five ingredients - zucchini, garlic, oil, salt and marjoram (which we grow in our garden and I never remember to use). The most difficult thing to do in the whole recipe was grate the squash. I substituted the yellow squash for the green zukes and 15 minutes later I was enjoying the dish. You sprinkle the squash with salt in a colander and let it sit for 10 minutes, so most of that was waiting time.

It worked out pretty well. In retrospect I would probably have used less garlic (I used two cloves and I think the recipe only called for one) and sauteed it with the squash instead of turning the cloves into a paste and mixing it in raw.

Grated Yellow Squash with Marjoram
adapted from Alice Water's "The Art of Simple Food", her recipe is Grated Zucchini with Marjoram

2 yellow summer squash
1 clove garlic
1-2 tbsp. olive oil
salt
marjoram

Grate the squash into a colander and sprinkle with salt. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then press to remove excess water.
Use a mortar and pestle or food processor to turn the garlic into a paste. In a bowl, mix squash, garlic paste and as much oil as you feel the dish needs.
Heat a saute pan on medium, then transfer the mixture into it. Saute until cooked, about 5 minutes.
Turn off the heat and mix in a tablespoon or so of marjoram leaves. Add salt, if needed.
Serve.