8/29 happy fish

So what do you do when you have frying oil left over from corn fritters? Why you fry fish of course! Behold the lane snapper, a close relative of the red snapper, swimming in a pool of deliciousness. Crispy on the outside but juicy and moist on the inside. If you've never fried a whole fish before, I highly recommend you do. You really don't actually need that much oil. I used less than 2 cups. Plus, it doesn't need a whole heck of a lot to make it into a fantastic meal... All you really need are a few slices of lemon! Actually, throw those slices in the oil with the fish for a few seconds and eat them too! Wish I would'a thought of that last night!

8/29 potato and fennel soup with rouille

Another first time on a recipe this week - with another soup. Can I just say that I love soup? Soups and me are like *this* (crosses two fingers together, shakes hand). But seriously, soups are good in the summer, they are good in the winter. They showcase vegetables to no end. I heart a good soup. Here we have a very simple soup: homemade stock, fennel, potatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes (here, a combo of canned and fresh) white wine, herbs and "aromatics" (as if saying "I'm using saffron in this dish" isn't pretentious enough - I get to lump it in with "aromatics").

What really pulls this dish together is some stupid french thing that I can't pronouce (uhhh, "roo-yay??? Help a brother out, Tom). It's basically bread pounded together with lots of chile powder, garlic, and salt. It's hard to see in the photo, but that's the icing on the cake, as it were.

8/28 red wine, tomato and onion soup

I guess this is sort of a veggie take on French onion soup, although since I've never made French onion soup I can only surmise. My friend Serena borrowed one of my cookbooks (The Greens Cookbook) just to make this recipe, so I figured I had to give it a shot. The basic idea is summer tomatoes and their juices, stewed with a bunch of thinly sliced red onions, red wine, and thyme stock.

Two things about this recipe: I went ahead and bought a baguette, sliced it into crouton-sized pieces, and popped them in the freezer for convenient as-needed usage, which worked perfectly here. I am brilliant. Also, it was immediately clear to me on completion and tasting that a nice crumbled goat cheese should really be used to finish this off. As a "mostly vegetarian," I'm extremely sensitive to the components of food that make a person feel full and satisfied after eating - and a soup without beans, grains, potatoes, or cheese/cream has a hard time cutting it as a main course.

8/28 lunch at work

With a microwave, a toaster oven and a few flimsy knives, "cooking" at work isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. However, that's no excuse for not eating good food. Today I put together a nice little sandwich with chicken breast (leftover from the other night), some fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and baby beet greens. I made sure to melt the mozz before adding the rest and ate the whole thing with a bowl of corn soup. Sure I could have used some fleur de sel and fresh cracked pepper, but it still beats a "burrito" from boloco.

Quesadillas

This is a summer-time staple. For all you who carefully observed my available ingredients for the week, here we use summer squash and corn, plus jalapenos, chipotle puree, white cheddar, cilantro, and Trader Joe's handmade tortillas. The black beans and creme fraiche round the whole thing out. Delish.

As a bonus, I have about 12 quesadillas prepped and ready for the cast iron skillet in the freezer. I am all about the freezer these days.

As an attempt to make up for the fact that I have not included a ROAST CHICKEN in this post, I submit to you a shot of thinly sliced summer squash, sauting with corn, jalapenos, and white wine:

The Egg Sammy

The egg sandwich. I believe one should be eaten every weekend. They are especially yummy with beautiful Eatwell eggs. I eat many variations on the egg sandwich: with chipotle in adobo puree, with or without lettuce, on a english muffin or bread. Today's variety includes dijon mustard, mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes, a generous amount of cheddar, and whole wheat. I had already started eating it when I took this shot.

8/26 poulet roti

"That's a roast chicken, numbnuts! And if you can't properly roast a damn chicken then you are one helpless, hopeless, sorry-ass bivalve in an apron. Take that apron off, wrap it around your neck and hang yourself. You do not deserve to wear the proud garment of generations of hardworking, dedicated cooks. Turn in those clogs, too."
-A. Bourdain

A trip to the Ferry Building Farmers' Market

So technically this post isn't about a dish, or even a meal. But let's get real, kids - meals come from food. And food comes from, well, a lot of places. Many of these places are not exactly thrilling shopping experiences. I get some of my food from Eatwell Farms, which is a community supported agriculture (CSA) venture around Davis, CA. This requires no shopping at all on my part - I simply pick up my box on Thursday night outside a local bakery co-operative and try to come up with good reasons why I'm out of change for the local color that lurks outside. However, this week Eatwell failed to renew my subscription so I was forced to "take it to the streets," as kids these days like to say (presumably while skateboarding and drinking high-caffeine sodas).

And thus I undertook a pilgrimage of sorts, to one of the great food meccas in North America. This would be the Ferry Building Farmers' Market, on the Embarcadero at the foot of the Bay Bridge. It's a little intense, since both real food people, various locals, and tourists all clamor in on Saturday morning, but one can enjoy some of the finest things about eating on the West Coast:

1. A plate of chilequiles that would make your mamacita cry
2. Coffee. Really great coffee. Made possible by a local shop that must be making a goddamn killing off of all us desperate for that perfect crema (Blue Bottle Coffee)
3. A cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, flowers, beans, bread, crying babies, dogs, ferries, all at prices that reflect the rarefied, sustainable, organic, local vibe

Visiting the Ferry Building at the end of August is like entering an impossible world: every kind of fruit and vegetable seems to be ripe and in season. These are the things that caught my eye - we'll see what inspiration whips up this week.

(To see a version of the photo above with labels identifying the items, click here).

8/25 vietnamese part deux

so the heat index hit 104degrees today. that's not cool. but what was i to do, i've been getting 6-12 ears of corn for the last month from Parker Farms and I had to come up with some new way to cook them. i've grilled 'em, turned them into soup, boiled them, eaten them raw... so what's left? well, deep frying of course! So yesterday when i was making my vietnamese meal i noticed a recipe for a coconut&corn fritter in the cookbook. So, that's exactly what i did. Basically, just some corn and coconut cream blended together with an egg, some flour and cornstarch, then deep fried for just a few minutes until they were all puffed up. Not exactly the light and healthy meal i was craving, but it sure was a good snack and should hold me over till the sausage i will invariably be enjoying at 2am in Faneuil Hall tonight.

8/24 vietnamese

my favorite ethnic food - by far... but very much outside my cooking comfort zone. no worries though, i had a hand from Haskell who joined me for dinner as well as a very good cookbook to guide me. The main dish was Ga Kho Gung (chicken braised in ginger and caramel sauce). This involved making homemade caramel sauce and cooking chunks of chicken thighs in it along with a good amount of ginger and some fish sauce. To go along with this, we also made some shrimp summer rolls. Again, not something i make very often. in fact, i've never made em before, but they were fun to put together and quite tasty. overall a pretty successful meal.

8/23 a salad?

yeah, just a salad for dinner on Thursday night. But it did include 2 poached eggs, 4 slabs of bacon, an avocado, half a cucumber, half a red bell pepper and nearly a whole head of lettuce... not too shabby. add some sherry/dijon vinaigrette and you got yourself a decent meal!

Poll Results

Here are links to each of the dishes from our weekly polls. Let us know if you want some actual recipes for how to cook this stuff!

The overall records are as follows:
Heather: 2-3-1
Tom: 3-2-1

Week 6 - Battle Italy
Sweet Potato Pizza
Cured Salmon Tagliatelle *

Week 5 - Seafood Battle
Smoked Salmon Quiche
Shrimp and Scallop Burger *

Week 4 - Green Eggs and Ham (sans eggs or ham)
Enchiladas Verdes *
Chicken and Garlic

Week 3 - Southern(ish) Food
White Bean Soup with Kale and Farro *
Acadian Peppered Shrimp *

Week 2 - Surf vs Turf
Salmon w/ Rutabaga and Arugula *
Skirt Steak Tacos

Week 1 - The Battle Begins
Summer Squash Quesedillas
Coconut&Corn Fritters *


* denotes winning dish