9/28 Scallop and Shrimp Burgers

Scallops were on sale today at Whole Foods, so I picked up a few. Unsure of what I would do with them I started browsing the internet. Inspired by several things, but without an actual recipe, I settled on cajun scallop and shrimp burgers. I basically modified the technique I'd used for crab cakes in the past. I threw a few of the shrimp and a scallop in my mini food-processor and made a paste of sorts. Cut up the remaining seafood into small chunks and added them to the paste along with some cajun seasoning, mayo and panko breadcrumbs. This held together reasonably well, but as you can tell came apart a bit during the cooking process. I served them as a open-face sandwich of sorts on some buttered bread with cajun mayo. Added a few slices of tomatoes and some mizuna greens along side and had myself quite a little meal. Next time, i'll have to make the whole thing hold together a bit better, but the flavors were definitely there.

9/27 wild mushroom risotto

I think I've always been a person who likes food and flavors. One of the first foods I learned to make for myself (and still a favorite comfort food) was a grilled cheese sandwich. I can remember sprinkling dried oregano on top of my slices of cheese and tomatoes to see how it went - and being thrilled with the results.

But didn't really "start cooking" until about half way through my undergraduate years. Oh sure, I hacked Annies Mac N Cheese (added canned green chilies and beans to the yellow cheddar mac, or tuna, frozen peas, and extra parm to the alfredo). And I had helped my mom in the kitchen for many years before that. But really cooking my own things - trying out new recipes and starting from scratch - wasn't a common occurrence.

One of the first things that I made that really turned me on to the pleasure of cooking was a risotto from Jamie Oliver. Yeah, okay, he's kind of an overgrown man-child, but hey, I like his recipes. Anyway, the risotto had shrimp, peas, and mint. Risotto is special to begin with, since it's a very "transformative" dish (coaxing creaminess from crunchy little grains of rice one cup of stock at a time). Jamie also advises the risotto chef to throw in a couple of tablespoons of butter at the very end, after you've achieved saucy goodness, turning off the heat, and letting the risotto "rest" for a few minutes before serving. Oh, heaven.

I picked up some maitake mushrooms and tomatoes at the farmers market for a wild mushroom risotto - chanterelles came from the Berkeley Bowl. The risotto base" is standard: leaks, garlic, arborrio rice, veg stock. I also stirred in some cream at the very end as my "finishing fat" and topped it off with parsley and parm.

9/27 Moussaka

After picking up my veggies from Steve from Parker Farms, Haskell and I headed over to Market Basket to pick up some sort of protein to make a meal out of. With no real idea of what we were going to cook, we hoped that Market Basket would provide some sort of inspiration. After browsing through the various offal they have there (veal hearts, beef feet, marrow bones, veal tongue, beef tripe...) I decided I wanted some lamb. Since I still had Steve's eggplants from last week and got more today, I figured a moussaka was in store. Unfortunately I didn't have a recipe, and didn't quite remember how to make it. So this is my bastardized version of moussaka. Basically where I went wrong is that I substituted the white cream sauce that usually bakes on top with mashed potatoes. So the whole thing turned out to be the bastard child of a moussaka and a Sheppard's pie. Not the worst thing in the world by any means. So just to recap what did end up inside this concoction: evoo, onions, garlic, ground lamb, parseley, thyme, oregeno, tomato paste, homemade tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, grilled eggplant, feta cheese all topped with a thin layer of egg yolk, which i guess was my approximation of what should have been a baked cream of sorts... Anywho, it was still quite delicious and will be enjoyed tomorrow at lunch as well.

9/26 Soup

Alright, it's my turn to make some soup... I'm not sure what to call it - maybe an early autumn soup - but I'm pretty sure even Donovan McNabb's mom would have found it rather chunky and satisfying. It was composed of parsnips, carrots, heirloom tomatoes, fresh kidney beans, spring onions, celery, a couple cloves of garlic, fresh thyme and fresh oregano. The kidney beans were simmered 20 minutes ahead of time with some herbs and finished with the rest of the soup. This was all cooked in the chicken stock I made last week. Overall it was pretty tasty, though it was significantly under salted. Fortunately, this is a problem which has an easy remedy.

9/25 smoked salmon quiche

I couldn't resist picking up some smoked salmon at the Temescal Farmers Market this Sunday. Originally, I had planned to add it to a potato salad, but upon perusing the cookbooks, I spotted a recipe for a smoked fish quiche that I couldn't resist.

I made the shell in advance (on Sunday) and had it waiting in the freezer. This is a very simple quiche: just sauted scallions (in butter, of course), smoked salmon, and two eggs beat together with 1/2 cup creme fraiche, milk, and salt and pepper. I think I went a little heavy on the salmon, but that's because IT'S DELICIOUS. The side veg are quickly steamed baby green beans (known in pretentious circles as "hericots verts" - also from the farmers' market), halved cherry tomatoes, and slivered basil tossed with a couple tablespoons of butter, some lemon juice, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper.


p.s. The cats really got excited when I made this - uh, the quiche, not the veg.

9/24 two-potato griddle cakes

Yet another CSA food conundrum here: too many got-tamn sweet potatoes. Sure, they are yummy and chock full of "the nutrients." But they are not as versatile as your regular potato. In the fall/winter/spring, Eatwell sends me sweet potatoes almost every week - and my list of things that I like to put them in is frighteningly short.

Enter, stage left, a new recipe. This one comes from Everyday Greens. A two-potato griddle cake that combines sweet and yellow finn potatoes with shallots, gruyere, parmesan, eggs, and flour into deliciousness! Served with a bitter greens and apple salad, this is a nice fall meal.

I had a lot of sweet potatoes, so I made a double batch and froze the rest of the patties. Maybe I'll pull them out for Chanukkah. After all, it's not just the chosen people who like festivals of lights and potato pancakes.

9/24 Gnocchi

I never really understood the fuss over gnocchi until I had to make some at Gharibaldi's and then enjoyed some of the finest gnocchi I've had at Bouchon. There, they are made using pate a choux, a light french pastry dough usually reserved for profiteroles, eclairs and gougeres. However when used for gnocchi, the results make you wonder why you'd waste it on anything else. However, last night my goal was to recreate the traditional potato gnocchi recipe I'd learned at Gharibaldi's from Chef Sasaki. He in turn had learned it from Keller when he worked at the French Laundry. Sasaki was as fanatical about how gnocchi should be prepared as I'd imagine Keller to be at his own restaurant.

The potatoes have to be russets or another starchy variety and they have to be baked - not boiled. Baking them, keeps them drier, and that means you need less flour to make the dough. Once fully baked you spoon out the flesh of the potatoes -but not all the flesh! The outermost flesh has become too dry and hard while baking - using it would ruin the final product. Now pass the flesh through a ricer and add flour and egg yolks - no egg whites, like some other recipes called for. Does this make them less healthy? Of course it does, but I don't think an extra egg yolk or two will kill me. Now this is where the dish can all go wrong. Mixing the ingredients has to happen fast and gently. You want to cut the eggs and flour into the potatoes, not kneed it. This keeps the dough light and fluffy. Now you're almost in the clear, you just need to roll the dough out into 1/2" round snakes and cut them into small pieces with a dough cutter. Arrange all the gnocchi on the backside of a cookie sheet - this makes it easier to dump them into SALTED water. For the love of god don't forget the salt! ah the memories... Once they're in the water, they will quickly rise to the top when they are ready. Fish them out and dump them immediately into ice water to stop the cooking. There you have it, you can use them right away, preferably by searing them up in some butter, giving them some nice color along the way, or you can freeze them (individually - before throwing them together in a bag) to use later on.

Last night i served them with a quick lamb stew i made with shoulder steaks and tomato sauce. Sure everything took two hours to make, but it was well worth it, and now I have four more meals worth of gnocchi to look forward to :)

9/22 Gone Camping

This weekend, I headed up to New Hampshire for a little camping trip. It was my friend Matt's Bachelor party, and so it was up to me to take care of the food. Sure enough, hamburgers and hot dogs were not had. Instead I picked up some European Sea Bass (also known as Branzino) before heading up to the mountains. There's not much else to tell other than that the fish were stuffed with lemon and thyme after being well salted and peppered. Each weighed approximately one pound, and so there was plenty for the 6 of us to go around :) They were served with some grilled corn and potato salad. Seemed like everyone really enjoyed themselves and I especially enjoyed cooking over a natural fire. As you can tell from the picture it was getting pretty dark when we started cooking, but everything worked out deliciously.

9/23 winter squash soup with cannellini beans, turnips, and fried sage bread crumbs

My CSA supplies me with many a squash throughout the fall and winter months. I'm pretty comfortable with butternut squash and spaghetti squash, but I've been getting delicata squash for the last couple of weeks, which is a little more mysterious. It looks a lot like an acorn squash, and I've never been particularly found of acorn squash.

I decided to try out another Vegetable Soups recipe that calls for butternut squash. I figured it would be close enough - right? Without having had the opportunity to make a direct comparison with butternut, I think the delicata might be even better here. It held up well over the course of cooking and brought a sweet, subtle flavor. The other veggies are little white tokyo turnips (also quite sweet when cooked), cabbage, and onion. To this, I added canellini beans and their cooking broth plus some store-bought veggie stock.

Debora Madison warns that this is a very sweet soup and needs something savory to balance the flavors (here, bread crumbs fried with sage and garlic). It looked lovely and tasted great on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, with the smell of our first rain in something like 6 months drifting in through the window.

9/22 Enchiladas Verdes

I don't normally make enchiladas since they're pretty time-consuming; they live in same "not really a Tuesday night dinner option" as making lasagna from scratch . But I ended up with a bunch of tomatillos from the CSA, and I wanted to do something a little more substantial than salsa verde.

This is a pretty straight forward recipe, and if you made the sauce and filling in advance, you probably could assemble and bake it on a weeknight and eat before 8:30. The tomatillo sauce is dead-simple (just onions, green pepper, jalapenos, tomatillos, chile pepper and salt simmered and blended). For all you tomatillo newbies out there - please don't over-blend. Tomatillos are chock full of pectin, and you can end up with a really gross goopy jam-mess if you blend too much. Some people like to add sugar to too-tangy tomatillo sauce, but with the cheese in this dish, I say the tangier the better. The enchiladas are stuffed with smoked cheddar and sauted zucchini, corn, onions, more jalapenos, and a good bit of ground cumin.

I had enough left over to do another small pan - which went straight into the freezer for dinner at a later date.

9/21 butter fried potatoes with curry spices

Okay Tom: you're not the only one who can play the "butter card" around here. I, too, can make a recipe based entirely on butter! In this case, clarified butter. I cooked a little over half a cup for this recipe, browning it nicely. Essentially, everything you see is fried in butter: first, potatoes; then, carrots. Separately, red onions, ginger, freshly ground cloves, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, cumin, coriander, cardamom, and nutmeg plus tomatoes and yogurt. Then you simmer it all together with about a cup of WHOLE CREAM. Bo-ya.

It is tre yum. A bit on the heavy side, though. I'd recommend ripe melon for dessert.

9/20 lunch: arugula and basil pesto with olives and capers

Sometimes, even the best of us have too much arugula. This especially happens now that I am a CSA member, since arugula grows thick and fast in Nor Cal in the winter.

A solution to this problem: arugula pesto! It is delicious. All the same principles as basil pesto with a little extra kick. I threw in some arugula and some basil here, along with parmesan (if I have pecorino, I use it, but alas parm would have to do), pine nuts, garlic, and a splash of balsamic vinegar (yes, yes, I'm an utter heretic). This was tossed with whole wheat spaghetti, cracked green olives, and capers. Nummers.

9/17 chicken and garlic

For someone who claims to dislike chicken, i do find myself with a whole chicken in my fridge rather frequently. Really when it comes down to it, i dislike chicken that others cook. By others, i mean most commercial establishments. It's always skinless, boneless and invariably tasteless, dry as chalk breast meat (yes this is a bad thing). anyway, tonight i had a whole chicken and instead of roasting it, which always leads to happiness, i opted to braise it. Now, not too long ago, my mom made a garlic chicken dish from a classic elizabeth david book, which was quite delicious (the meal, not the book). i didn't have the recipe on hand, so i just did my best to recreate it. Basically, after browning the chicken, which i'd cut up into the standard 8 pieces (breast, thing, leg & wing), i braised it with some white wine, onions, a lot of garlic and some carrots till everything was nice and tender. (unsurprisingly, i used bacon fat as the lubricant). i also cooked up some green beans as a side. Speaking of the green beans, after steaming them, i like to pan fry them in butter till they are basically burnt. I realize this is very french of me and some might even say this is slightly weird, but it tastes sooooooooo good. they're not actually burnt, its closer to lightly caramelized. the waxiness is nearly gone and any crispiness that they've lost while cooking has been replaced by buttery crispiness. basically, they've become an unhealthy reincarnation of their previous selves. simply delicious.

9/13 white bean soup w/ kale and farro

So a few things have happened recently. One is that I have been literally *awash* in leftovers. This is good for me in one way, but it cuts back on my posting. Another thing is that I am exhausted from work. This cuts back on enthusiasm for cooking as well (thank god for the leftovers). I am happy to pop my frozen summer squash quesadilla on the stove and call it a night.

One factor that pushed me into making an actual "new meal" this week was that I was running short of work-appropriate leftovers (i.e., those that can be either microwaved or eaten cold). I hardly ever purchase lunch, which satisfies a desire to not spend all my disposable income on so-so burritos and is a convenient market for all of my dinner extras. Since a quick glance in the fridge told me I'd need more lunch material by the end of the week, back to the kitchen go I.

I have already expressed a love of soups both verbally and in sheer number of posts that have been devoted to them. I'm definitely going through a soup phase. This is partially fed by acquiring Vegetable Soups, which I cannot praise highly enough. But I think it also feeds into the urge to really *understand* what makes a pretty simple formula tick: how can veg, beans, grains, and dairy live together in brothy harmony? Beans and whole grains especially are really getting me excited. I even placed an order with Rancho Gordo for some heirloom varieties.

Yes, beans can be a real pain in the ass to cook from scratch - but I've taken a multi-day approach that seems to be working well. If I want a bean soup on Wednesday night, I soak the beans Monday night, simmer them for an hour or more Tuesday night, and by Wednesday all I need to do is throw them in the pot with the rest of the soup stuff. I even let the pot just sit out on the stove (covered, minus any aromatics) in the in-between. Not exactly high maintenance.

So here we go: white bean soup with kale, farro and a can of tomatoes for good measure. I finished it off with croutons, parm, and a bit of drizzled olive oil.

9/12 Acadian Peppered Shrimp

I first made this dish at a Cajun cooking class at the California Culinary Academy and have been making it regularly ever since. It's essentially a dish you should be able to make with just what's in your pantry (assuming of course you always keep a bag of frozen shrimp around, like i do, and have a lemon on hand). Now, of course, this isn't the healthiest dish around, but it sure is good and quick to make. Basically you make a sauce with butter and LOTS of black pepper. We're not talking tablespoons here... get those measuring cups out and take the time to grind fresh pepper. To this you add oregeno, thyme, garlic, paprika, cayenne, salt, lemon juice, and a crushed bay leaf. (exact amounts vary based on taste, look up a recipe online to get an idea, but then adjust them as you see fit, but don't skimp in the black pepper!) Once the butter is melted and the garlic is softened a bit, you add your shrimp. cook them until just pink. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T OVERCOOK THE SHRIMP!!!!! Serve this with some rice and veggies (mustard greens in this case) and you're good to go. If you're smart and not on a diet, go heavy on the butter and get some fresh bread to mop up the leftover "sauce". That's some tasty stuff right there. Oh and I almost forgot, keep the shells on the shrimp when you cook them. This means things get messy, but there's so much flavor in those shells it'd be a shame not to use them. Plus lickin' the butter off the shells and your fingers is half the fun.

9/7 cali summer salad

Here is a simple salad that took advantage of an overflow of veggies and some leftover pesto. I made a dressing with the pesto, a squeeze of lemon juice, some red wine vinegar, and a little extra olive oil. The salad is frisee, radicchio, arugula, red butter lettuce, tomatoes, and avocado. Very filling and satisfying.

9/6 fall

So it's that time of year again. Football, apples, soups&stews, baseball playoffs, crisp evenings, pumpkins... This is when New England is really alive. The kids are all back to school now and although there'll be a few hot days yet, we all know what's around the corner. And with that, lets introduce the foundation for many of the things I will be cooking up during the next couple months.

Few people make their own stock, and yet it's dead easy - especially chicken stock. The most important part of stock is not to let it boil. I usually roast my chicken bones for an hour first. This makes for a darker stock, but it also helps get rid of the fat. I usually use onions, carrots, celery and a little tomato paste (again helps with color and flavor). Throw in some aromatics (peppercorns, thyme, parseley, bay leaves...) and that's pretty much it. If you want a really clear stock don't roast the bones and omit the tomato paste. It all cooks gently for 5-8 hours before going through the strainer. I reckon this batch (a gallon or so) will last me at least a month or two depending on what I cook.

9/6 taco night

I've been pretty busy this week so I haven't cooked a whole heck of a lot. Mostly just eating salads and veggies. (I think I stuck around Berkeley a bit too long!) So I took care of the problem and made some steak tacos tonight. Pretty straight forward: skirt steak grilled medium rare (if that...) on a cast iron skillet, some guacamole and home made salsa. All this served on some hand-made (not by me) soft corn tortillas. Even Rachel Ray could make this in under thirty minutes.

9/4 salmon w/ rutabaga puree and arugula

Oh, salmon season. Surely you are the most wondrous of the seasons. Nothing like a thick steak of California King to satiate a fishee craving. I knew that salmon was going to be the centerpiece of this meal - but what to pair with it? I had three little red potatoes from the CSA, which after much searching of the cookbooks led to a decision that maybe a nice rutabaga puree could round things out, with spicy arugula salad. The rutabaga and potatoes have been mashed with a generous amount of warm milk, butter, chives, parsley, and nutmeg.

I have just discovered the genius of horseradish. Is this bad? In any case, I'm making up for lost time. You'll notice a decent spoonful making itself known here.

9/3 Pancakes w/ plum sauce

Nothing better than pancakes on a Sunday morning. Since this was a holiday Monday, I guess it had much of the same effect.

These were sort of ...crepe-like pancakes. The batter was too runny to create actual pancakes. I made them from trying to cut a Mark Bittman (How to Cook Everything) recipe in half and sub in some cornmeal for the flour. I think something about the cornmeal makes it less bulky when liquids are added.

In any case, after slow cooking some plums into a sort of compote with sugar and lemon zest, plus the important addition of a fried egg, this brekky was ready to go.

9/1 oh figlet!?

I decided to switch things up a bit today and have a big meal for lunch instead of dinner. This meal started coming together about a week ago when I bought a box of figs at Wilson Farms. A couple days later, the figs were still sitting arond and I hadn't quite figured out what to do with them. Before they went bad, I opted to cook them with some Port and turn them into a sauce. They cooked for a solid hour at low heat before I passed them through a chinois, thereby getting rid of all the little seeds. Not only did all this save them from going bad, but it would invariably lead to a delicious meal later in the week. And so that meal was today. I grilled a pork chop on the bbq and made a grilled corn & tomato salad to go with it. As anticipated, the fig/port sauce, which was drizzled onto the chop, added quite a bit to the meal that would've otherwise been rather pedestrian. hooray figs!