(Pureed) Purple Pepper Pesto Pasta (with Spinach)

Okay, it's official: call me an infomercial but I am using my oven about 80% less frequently now that I have the NüWave. To get my oven to preheat to 450 for some veggie roasting takes over half an hour--in that time I can have the thing roasted and done in my crazy space-age appliance. Case(s) in point: the garlic and island purple peppers I roasted perfectly in about 12 minutes. After roasting, I tossed the peppers and a few cloves into the food processor and processed with some olive oil. I let that sit for a bit as I cooked up some linguini and sautéed some shallots, spinach, and the rest of the cloves. I scooped the pesto into the sauté pan and added starchy pasta water until the conistency was right. Stirred in the pasta over heat and microplaned some Parmesan. The texture was practically like an alfredo but the only dairy was the sprinkling of cheese; it was just the way the pesto coated the pasta that felt so decadent. And talk about nutritional value! This dish for two used a full head of garlic, 4 medium-sized peppers, and a big ol' bunch of spinach!

Seared lamb chops with a ginger lavender mint black currant sauce

The CSA newsletter said the black currants were probably too tart unless you cooked them so that was all the encouragement I needed to turn them into a sauce to drizzle over some CSA lamb chops. First, the sauce: melt some buttter in a small sauce pan and sweat some shallots. Shave some ginger into the sweating aromatics. Pour in the pint of (destemmed) currants and stir, lowering heat a bit. Drizzle in some honey (I think I did about two tablespoons in total) until the tartness is bearable. Stir in about 1/3 cup of mint, a tablespoon of lavender buds, and a dash of white pepper. Salt to taste and keep it over low heat until the consistency starts to thicken up. I marinated the lamb in black mulberry vinegar, olive oil, wildberry ginger preserves, salt, and pepper for about 2 hours, and then I slid it under the broiler for about 10 minutes in total (reserve any cooking juices to stir back into the sauce). For the oh-so-fancy presentation, lay the lamb on a bed of the fruit sauce, drizzle a little bit on top, and then sprinkle some mint leaves around for garnish.

tossed salad in a raddicio cup

take a big ol' raddicio leaf and lay it out on a plate. scoop some goat cheese on it and drizzle a li'l honey over the cheese. in a seperate bowl, mix chopped raddicio with chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and red onion. make a quick dressing with tarragon vinegar, olive oil, chopped summer savory, and honey and toss the salad with the vinaigrette. scoop a mound of the salad on top of the raddicio bowl. garnish with a sprig of savory and be slightly disappointed that the color contrast is not ideal and plan to use a green leaf lettuce or frisee next time.

Garlic Scape Pesto

If you have leftover scape from your CSA shares or trips to the farmer's market, toss them in a food processor with some toasted walnuts, anf Parmesan, drizzling olive oil in until the consistency is right for you. Salt. Pepper. (And when you mix it with your pasta, stir in some of the starchy pasta water.)

Iced Hibiscus Tea with Mint: The taste of summer

Fill a sauce pot up with water. Drop in 5 hibiscus rose hip tea bags and let simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in some honey to taste. Chop up about 2 cups of mint and place in a sturdy glass pitcher. Pour the still hot tea over the mint. Refrigerate until chilled then serve over ice, garnished with fresh mint. Build a patio to enjoy it on.

Miso Braised Bok Choi & Shiitake Mushrooms

 
CSA season means lots of Asian greens. I have a feeling this isn't the last ginormous head of bok choi I'll be seeing this month. Using some dried shiitake mushrooms, I doctored the below recipe by substituting the reserved mushroom juices for the chicken stock. I also used those juices to cook up some quinoa to serve on the side:

3/4 pound large shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
3 small heads bok choy, rinsed and chopped
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon red miso paste
2 tablespoons low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup water
freshly ground black pepper


1. Brush or wipe away any dirt from the shiitakes. Remove and discard the stems. Cut the mushrooms into thick slices (in half for smaller mushrooms, thirds for larger mushrooms). Cut the leaves of the bok choy away from the stems. Wash both well.

2. Heat the butter and peanut oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the miso paste and chicken broth together until smooth. When the butter melts and browns slightly, add the mushrooms. Leave them alone to brown on the first side, 2-4 minutes.

3. Add the miso and broth mixture to the mushrooms and stir. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms absorb the miso and most of the liquid evaporates, 3-5 minutes.

4. Add the bok choy and 1/2 cup water and stir. Cover and cook, stirring once or twice, until the mushrooms are soft and the bok choy is tender but still bright green, 4-6 minutes. Remove the cover to let any remaining liquid evaporate. Season generously with fresh ground black pepper.

Elk Chili with Macaroni

Recipe stolen from a user at All Recipes: (all I added was tomato paste, smoked paprika, and macaroni. Oh, and the photo is of my own version!)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds ground elk meat

2 large yellow onions, diced

2 (10 ounce) cans tomato sauce

1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes

1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained

1 (4 ounce) can diced green chiles (optional)

1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 cup brown sugar

DIRECTIONS

In a large deep skillet over medium heat, cook the ground elk with the onion until evenly browned. Drain off excess grease.

Pour the tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, kidney beans and green chilies into the skillet with the meat, and stir to blend. Season with chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, oregano and brown sugar. Cover, and simmer over low heat for at least one hour.

Sweet & Spicy Salad

Ah, the first veggie delivery from my CSA! Along with some rhubarb that I transformed into Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp and some sage that became Gnocchi with Brown Butter, Fried Sage, and Morels, this week's delivery featured quite a few items with bite: arugula, mizuna (a fern-like spicy green), and radishes. I figured that they would pair nicely with some sweetness, so I chopped these spicy veggies into a salad together, roasted up some pears (oven at 450 for 30 min), caramelized some onions (oven at 450 for 10) and walnuts (toasted in my cast iron with some white sugar), shaved some parmesan, shook up a pistachio honey vinaigrette (with pistachio oil, honey, lemon juice, cider vinegar, shallots, dijon, salt, and black pepper), and garnished with the purple sage flowers.

Chilled Spicy Watermelon Soup with Crab Meat

Sweet, simple, spicy, and delicious. K came home with a watermelon the other day and, after tasting some delectable watermelon dishes which paired the sweet fruit with savory fare, I concocted a chilled summer shellfish soup. Here's the (non)recipe:

• Cut up enough watermelon to fit in a normal sized food processor. Process.
• Sweat some garlic, shallots, lemongrass, jalepenos, and ginger (I use my microplane with frozen ginger to keep things simple).
• Dump the pureed watermelon into the pot. Throw in some salt, black pepper, and cilantro, with some extra jalapeno to taste.
• Whip out your immersion blender. Immerse. Blend.
• Chill the new puree (or, if you like, strain it first)
• Form a mound of lump crabmeat (I use high quality canned claw meat) in the center of the bowl, slice some more jalepenos on top, and gently pour the chilled soup around the shellfish.

On a kale kick

Rotini with kale, shallots, garlic, fresh chillies, (and super-secret anchovies).

You can replace the anchovies (which you dissolve into the oil first before sauteeing the shallots and garlic) with bacon, pancetta, or any other fatty goodness that will render down and give a little extra richness.  I suppose if you wanted to go vegan you might even be able to brown some portabello mushrooms and deglaze with a veggie stock.

Kale with pomegranite seeds?

Yep. Tasty! And looks like Christmas on a plate but my cell phone camera dulled the colors :(

Here's the "recipe":

1. Heat up some olive oil in a pan
2. Sautee some shallots and chillies
3. Throw in some chopped kale and make it go all wilty 
4. Sprinkle some celery salt as you stir in some pomegranite seeds and lemon juice
5. Serve immediately, eat immediately, and sigh with pleasure (immediately)

What a week!

So it's been a little while since my last post, primarily because I've been so busy eating. K and I discovered a great new restaurant near our theatre company's rehearsal space and the harvest has started heating up with our new CSA so I've had some great fresh produce to work with (this newsletter details what our weekly take was).

Let's talk about this restaurant first. It's called Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, located on 2nd Avenue in the East Village and wow is this place a gem: service like you'd find only in the world's most elegant restaurants, jaw-droppingly stunning presentation, complex unique flavor pairings, and quite a lot of bang for one's buck.

I got the tasting menu and here is what I tasted:

• Fruit de Mer Sampler: 1 East Coast Oyster, 1 West Coast Oyster, 1 Littleneck Clam, and a Toast Point with Caviar. Served simply, each with a little flavor-enhancing garnish. Possibly the freshest raw seafood I've had and certainly the best I've had outside of Poke.
• Torchon of Tuna and Foie Gras with Blood Orange and Cilantro: Imagine the texture of creme brulee, rich, creamy and crispy (with a caramelized ginger glaze), but instead of a custard inside, there's a delicately mixed blend of tuna tartar and foie gras. The side salad was the perfect complement, with bright fruity acidic flavors to cut through any of the torchon's fattiness.
  
• Duck Liver Pate with Port Gelee and Truffle: An arresting deconstructed preparation which, when mixed, provided one of the most decadent savory treats I've had in my life. The creamy pate had a light whipped consistency and was topped with the sweet gelee. The waiter instructed me to mix the hefty spoon full of chopped black truffles into the pate, and then spread the mixture on toast points, garnishing it with the accompanying ancient mustard, pickled onions, and cornichon. A-mazing!
• Butter Poached Lobster with Pistachios, Haricot Vert, Mushrooms, and Lobster Jus: All of the pleasure of cracking open a steamed lobster and dipping it in melted butter, except someone has already done the work for you, pulling out the lobster's meatiest bits and infusing them with a deep butter flavor for you. They were tossed with the jus and the vegetables, with the haricot vert's crunch providing a nice counterpoint to the melt-in-your-mouth lobster and chewy mushrooms. The pistachios were ground in a line on the side of the plate, allowing me to coat each bite in the perfect amount of nutty texture.
  
• Pear Sorbet with Greek Yogurt and Vanilla: Simple and delicious. The pear and vanilla are a natural pair (pun definitely intended!) but the tartness of the greek yogurt really woke up my palette and let me taste the full round flavors of the the sorbet.
• "S'More" Chocolate-Pistachio Nougat and Toasted Marshmallow: Above and beyond the best S'mores experience of my life. The marshmallows were homemade and luxuriously textured, each caramelized to perfection like a very small creme brulee.
  

Not bad for $50 right? Yep, I said FIFTY DOLLARS!!! That's insanely cheap for such quantities of food this good. JLOB was the first (non-Japanese) restaurant I've visited since Babbo that I've said to myself, "My god I could never cook this myself!" I mean, it's not like I walk into every restaurant and say, "Oh, this is so easy I could have whipped it up in just a few minutes." That said, I can usually figure out a way to create a dumbed-down and simplified version of most things I eat at restaurants. Not so with JLOB; the techniques, the flavors, the presentation, the ingredients were all lightyears beyond my meager abilities. Reason enough to go to cooking school if I ever tasted one!

...And now a meal I cooked later in the week:


Gorgonzola Salad with Sundried Tomato Dressing:

A simple mixed salad with romaine, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions, and slices of gorgonzola, topped with a (thick) dressing made from pureed rehydrated sundried tomatoes, lemon juice, and pistachio oil.

Grilled Figs Wrapped in Serrano Ham and Stuffed with Gorgonzola:

As simple as it sounds. Slice fresh figs open enough to cram them full of the (chilled) smelly fromage. Wrap them in Serrano or prosciutto and give them a good rub down to make sure the ham is going to stay on. Pop them onto a hot grill and turn every 90 seconds or so. Serve immediately while the ham is still warm. Hot and cold. Salty and sweet. A party in your mouth.

Gnocchi with Chanterelles & Crispy Sage in a Brown Butter and Truffle Oil Sauce:

This picture looks pretty gnarly but the dish itself was one of my best gnocchi preparations. As you're boiling up the gnocchi, saute the fresh sage and chanterelles in butter. Pour in a glug or two of truffle oil and some starch pasta water to thicken. Toss with gnocchi and garnish with crushed red pepper and shaved parmesan.

Had enough?

Tough. It's my foodblog and I'll back log as many posts as I like :) ! You can be sure I've spared you from the details of most of the fabulous meals I've consumed this past week, like the great stir fry I made with the mizuna and chinese cabbage that came from my CSA this week, or my intoxicating trip to Poke with E & K. But there are two more recipes I want to keep in my little virtual recipe box, both from last night:

Grilled Seafood Salad with Grilled Tomatoes and Grilled Citrus Vinaigrette:

The perfect summer salad. Get your grill (or your grill pan) hot and keep it hot. Halve a lemon and a lime and grill them till they're striped. Squeeze half of the lemon and half of the lime into a bowl, reserving the other halves for garnish. Whisk in some olive oil, honey, salt, and black pepper until you have a nice emulsion. Put that dressing aside for a bit and work on the salad itself. Grill a medley of halved small heirloom tomatoes until they're striped and put them on a bed of chopped greens (I used the mizuna and red sail lettuce from my CSA). I happened to have some garlic scape on hand so I chopped that up and threw it on top of the greens and tomatoes. Now, with a hot grill, char up any mixture of small shrimp, calimari, and tiny bay scallops (at those sizes you can cook them all together without overcooking either of the elements...Trader Joes makes a frozen bag of the stuff!). Toss them on top of the salad, drizzle the dressing on, and garnish with the grilled citrus fruits and summer savory (also came with CSA but wow that was a great discovery!).

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce:

It's true, I had a box of gnocchi I've slowly been working my way through; it's a great way to turn a skimpy meal into hearty fare and takes to a wide variety of flavors very well. Simmer some light cream and melt gorgonzola in to taste. Stir in some dried sage and a dash of white pepper. Toss the gnocchi in the sauce, drain of excess cream with slotted spoon, plate, and garnish with summer savory and shaved parmesan (as cheesy as the sauce is, the parmesan still cuts through and adds some nice treble flavors).

My Big Fat Low-Fat Burritos

The quandary: I wanted big and bold Mexican flavors but it was just too disgusting out to yearn for standard Mexican fare.

The solution:

I'll be honest, I've never cooked a burrito before. I've made quite a few quesadillas in my day and I make a mean chipotle chocolate chile, but I've never braved burritoville, as it were. I have made wraps, though, and that's pretty much all a burrito is. So, on to the components:

• Rice: I just used Trader Joe's microwaveable brown rice. It's moist and crunchy and ready from the nuke in just 3 min.
• Beans: I heated up some canned organic black beans and fat free canned organic refried beans (which I had to hydrate a little bit).
• Salad: Just shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.
• Cheese: What's better than cheddar? Okay, pepper jack probably would have been fine...
• Beef: I had my last bag of frozen (humane) lean ground beef from last season's CSA to use up so I mixed about half a pound up with some grill seasoning, cumin, and cinnamon and browned it with some garlic in some olive oil in my cast iron. Once the meat started caramelizing, I stirred in a big ol' spoon of tomato paste and 2 chipotle peppers (canned in adobo). A little more cumin and cinnamon and then I took the heat down and let it all stew together for a bit.
  
• Toppings: Fat-free sour cream, guacamole, salsa, diced tomatoes, more cheddar, and a few slices of lime.
• Beverage: Corona. Lime.
  

Done and delicious. It was nice to control every single ingredient that went into a meal that I'm accustomed to ordering from the likes of Taco Bell and Chipotle, and it obviously tasted much better. It wasn't really the sort of burrito that you can eat with your hands, though--I got a bit greedy while stuffing it!

And for dessert...

Sweet Plantains
Slice 2 ripe plantains up on diagonals so they have more surface area than the usual disc cuts. Melt some butter in a cast iron and brown them on one side. Flip them and sprinkle some brown sugar and white sugar on, as well as a healthy dousing of real vanilla extract (off the heat if you have a gas stove). Make the plantains dance for you in the air as you toss them to coat with the vanilla caramelly mixture. Plate them with a lime wedge to cut through the sweetness a bit.

Mango Madness

I seem somehow to have lifted my food curse. Dinner was really pretty great tonight. With tropical humidity here in NYC this weekend (YUCK!!!) I decided to purchase a bunch of mangoes and see what I could come up with.

Mango Gazpacho with Shrimp
This is actually much easier than it sounds because if you can dig up all of the ingredients and a blender, it's pretty hard to screw it up. Take about 8 vine-ripened tomatoes and peel them (much simpler if you cut an "x" at the bottom and blanch them for 1 minute before shocking them in an ice bath. ) Chop them up and throw them into a bowl along with half a cucumber diced, half of yellow onion diced, half of a red onion chopped, 2 pressed cloves of garlic, and 2 minced jalapenos. In a food processor, blend together the juice of 1 lemon and 3 or 4 glugs of good olive oil. Put it on pulse and pour in the bowl of veggies, chopping until it is "rustically" textured (soupy but chunky). Add the zest of one lemon, the zest of one lime, and about 4 inches of microplaned ginger, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Pour into a large bowl and stir in 2 roughly chopped mangoes and about a dozen small boiled or steamed shrimp (or you can chop up larger ones if that's all you can get). Garnish with cilantro and lime. Sweet, salty, spicy, scrumptious!

Mango and Brie Quesadillas
Do all of your prep ahead of time, with piles of mango, sliced brie, jalapenos, and cilantro ready to go so your tortillas don't burn. Get a cast-iron or nonstick toasty over medium heat. Place a tortilla on it and move quickly. On half of the tortilla, layer sliced mango, brie, minced jalapenos, and chopped cilantro and fold the other half of the tortilla over omelette style. Press down with a spatula until the top sticks to the bottom. Let it cook on that side for no more than 45 seconds and then flip. Serve it with a cool sauce made of non-fat sour cream, the juice of 1 lime, lime zest, and chopped cilantro and garnish with a few more slices of mango. This dish is both refreshing and decadent. (Oh, and you might have noticed my dog Ben hiding underneath the table; he LOVES mangoes!)

If you're looking for a wine pairing for all of this (or if you're too tired to blend up some margaritas or Cran-quilas!), I suggest Cambrago's Soave Classico 2005. As the wine store clerk said, if you can deal with the fact that it's got Soave written on the label, it's actually a really great wine, and a nice bargain at $13.95.

Food curse?

Oh, friends. Your resident truffle pig is going through a rough patch. As if my earlier post about osso bucco bungling and tiramisu trauma weren't enough, I had a veritable salt cod catastrophe this evening. Sure it looks good (see inlaid photo) and sure 70% of it tasted great, but the cod pieces themselves were practically inedible. Thing is: I can't figure out where I went wrong. I soaked the cod overnight and shredded it just like I have in the past. I think it might have just been a bad cut of salt-cod. From here on in, I'm sticking to fresh scrod for this recipe.

"Flaky Fish of Some Sort" Biscaino:
Heat up some olive oil over medium high heat with some red pepper flakes and anchovies. Once the anchovies melt, drop in diced carrots, celery, and onions and some sliced garlic, sauteing until they start to caramelize a bit. Deglaze with Vermouth and pour in a can of crushed roasted tomatoes. Stir it up and let it get a little bubbly before you stir in some saffron, cinnamon, and ground cloves. Lay the shredded fish in the mixture and cook until it gets flaky. Pour in some capers, green olives, and some boiled new potatoes. Once their warm, garnish with parsely and serve over rice.

Two Italian Meals

I think I've cooked (and dined out at) much more Italian this year than in years past. I have no idea why. The only reasons I could come up with happen to directly negate each other. Either (1) the presence of CSA produce in my life makes me want to cook and eat food that showcases freshness (which Italian does well) or (2) my inability, as of late, to go grocery shopping on a regular basis has forced me to rely heavily on pantry ingredients (which, with its dried pastas, canned tomatoes, etc, Italian cuisine naturally excels at).

At any rate, I cooked for K, E, and L for L's birthday schindig last week...the whole thing was sort of a culinary failure on my part but, with enough wine, few people complain about free food.

A list of my idiocy:

• I made Giada's Osso Bucco and I FORGOT TO PUT IN THE BOUQUET GARNI THAT I PREPARED!!!
• I made a mushroom ragout for some polenta patties and I FORGOT TO BUY CREAM TO THICKEN THE MUSHROOM SAUCE!!!
• After whipping up the ingredients for this Tiramisu recipe, I delegated assembly to E and I FORGOT EXACTLY HOW LONG THE LADYFINGERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOAKED!

There's more, but it just hurts to much to think back :)

I made up for my sins last night by cooking well for K.

Here's my Linguine alla Vongole:
Saute sliced garlic, minced anchovies, and a few red pepper flakes in a healthy amount of olive oil on a medium-high heat. Let it all get golden and yummy, taking it off the heat to make sure it doesn't burn. Deglaze with some white wine and lemon juice and then pour in a can of high-quality clams. Stir and give the ingredients some time to get to know each other under a lid and over some low heat. Boil up the pasta and drop a splash of the pasta water into the clam sauce. Mix the drained pasta into the sauce and pour on a glug on high quality olive oil off the heat. Garnish with parsley.

Preserved Salad: (see above picture!)
So, this simple salad is just mesclun, tomatoes, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, anchovies, and parsely doused with a vinaigrette made from rustic mustard, balsamic vinegar, orange blossom honey, lemon juice, and pistachio oil. Yum.

No fresh food? No problem!

Even though it was quite the long day and the end of quite the long week, I knew I wanted to cook for K tonight, if only because it's been nearly two weeks since I prepared a dinner of any kind. Unfortunately, I also haven't purchased groceries in at least that long and last week was so hellish that I even forgot to pick-up the last CSA delivery of the season (and our last with Prince George CSA). Sure, I could have just gone downstairs and picked up some groceries, but K and I live in a 5th floor walk-up and I had already gone up and down to walk my dog (and couldn't pop in for groceries then because of draconian health department codes).

So, faced with the challenge of cooking a two-course meal from my pantry and freezer, here's what I came up with:

Seared Scallops with Saffron Anchovy Butter
I decided it was time to polish off the last 7 bivalves from Trader Joe's' frozen Wild Japanese Scallops, but I wanted to create a brand-new recipe for the sauce (and one which didn't use truffle butter, truffle salt, or truffles of any sort!). I made the sauce first so that I didn't overcook the scallops while rushing to finish the sauce. I melted some butter and dropped some warm-water softened saffron and finely chopped (jarred) anchovies in it, whisking until the anchovies dissolved (yes, Virginia, fish do dissolve!). I stirred in some dry Vermouth and let the alcohol cook out. I whisked in some horseradish cream and some capers (in their brine). I set it aside in a condiment cup under tin foil and seared the scallops (dredged in a li'l bit of flour, sea salt, and black pepper) in butter. After both sides were browned, I poured the sauce in the pot and sauteed the scallops in the rich fishy goodness for a few seconds before plating it.

Rotelle w/Sundried Tomato & Chicken Sausage Sauce
Forget authenticity! While I usually try approach Italian dishes from a fairly traditional stance, trying to use ingredients that I know (from my father's cooking, from visiting Italy, or from watching Mario Batali) have some history of being paired together, an empty fridge meant I'd have to get creative. So, I began my dad's standard tomato sauce the usual way: some olive oil, some red pepper flakes, some dried Italian seasoning, some garlic, and some onion. Sauteed for a bit and then threw in some rehydrated and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Once they absorbed most of the fat, I deglazed with some Vermouth and let it cook off. I poured in a can of diced tomatoes and after they cooked for awhile, mashed some of the larger chunks. I warmed the pre-cooked chicken sausage in the sauce a few minutes before serving, and poured the smokey deep tomato flavors over some store-bought rotelle and topped it with shaved parmesan.

Truffles Five Ways...finally!

So, this was the dinner that sparked my desire to start a food blog. It's taken me about 10 days to actually write about it. While I could pretend that it took that long just to fully savor the delicate flavors and textures, the fact of the matter is that I've been busy cooking and eating other things. And while we're dealing the realm of "facts," I should probably make clear that I can't afford to cook with fresh truffles; I use a variety of high-quality black and white truffle oils and truffle salt.

With disclaimers done, on to the meal:

Green Apple, Celeriac, and Truffle Chilled Soup
When life (or a CSA) gives you celeriac, make celeriac soup. K and I went to Pure Food and Wine in early 2006 and a variant of this dish was on the tasting menu. It was delicious and, while I haven't jumped on the raw food wagon, it has since inspired me to occasionally dabble with a raw food palette. Here's the original recipe, picked up from Raw Food/Real World:

• 4 cups peeled, chopped celeriac
• 1 cup chopped green apple, plus 1/2 cup very small dice for garnish
• 1 1/2 cups raw macadamia nuts, soaked for 1 hour or more
• 1 1/2 cups filtered water
• 2 tablespoons coconut butter
• 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup minced chives
• 1 small fresh black truffle, shaved or julienned (optional)
• 1/4 cup black truffle oil
• Chervil leaves, or other herbs for garnish

In a Vita-Mix or high-speed blender, blend the celeriac and green apple until smooth. Pass through a fine strainer and discard the pulp. Pour the strained liquid back into the blender. Add the macadamia nuts, water, coconut butter, olive oil, and lemon juice and blend thoroughly At the restaurant, if the soup still tastes a bit grainy from the macadamia nuts, we strain it again, but then add back a bit of the pulp and reblend it to keep it creamy, yet smooth. This may not be necessary, just a matter of preference! Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste If not serving right away, store it in the refrigerator in a covered container. Be sure to bring it back to room temperature before serving (reblending can help speed this process along as the movement increases the temperature) and taste again and adjust seasoning.

Divide the soup among 4 bowls, and garnish with the diced apple, chives, and black truffle (if using). Drizzle with truffle oil and top with chervil leaves

Serves 4.

So, not one for following recipes, especially ones which call for tricky ingredients like coconut butter and raw macadamia nuts, I kind of forged my own way. I just chopped some apples and celeriac and threw them in a blender with enough water to make the thick mixture catch. I strained it and trashed the left-over pulp. I blended it again, this time time with some soaked walnuts, adding enough to give it a creamy texture (I also threw it a little bit of butter at this point). I blended in some chives for color. Strained it all again and then stirred in some black truffle oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I garnished with some very thinly sliced apple.

Smooth. Sweet. Earthy. Tastes both decadent and incredibly healthy.

Gnocchi with Sage Brown Butter Truffle Sauce
Riffing on Giada's sage brown butter sauce (excellent on butternut squash ravioli), I let some butter brown in a pan, threw in some sage leaves and let them crisp. Poured in a glug or two (small bottles so small glugs) of white truffle oil and mixed it. Add this all to store-bought gnocchi and life is good.

Seared Truffled Scallops with Truffled Greens
Doubling my truffle pleasure with this simple but elegant dish, I created a truffle balsamic vinaigrette:1 part balsamic, 1 part pistachio oil, 1 part white truffle oil, salt, and pepper. Pat some large scallops dry and rub them with truffle salt and black pepper and dust them with some flower. Sear them in a hot non-stick or cast-iron pan and while they're cooking (careful not to overcook or you'll have truffled rubber) coat the greens (I like baby arugula because it's strong enough to turn the truffle aroma into a subtle background player) in the vinaigrette. Off the heat, quickly toss the scallops in a mixture of white and black truffle oil and serve on top of the greens.

Truffle Aperitif
Shouldn't an aperitif be consumed before dinner? Yes, but not if you're so food-deprived (perhaps because you've been scouring your neighborhood grocers for decent scallops and searching in vain for coconut butter and raw macadamia nuts) that a few sips of the aperitif will get you too drunk to appreciate the other 3 courses of your high-falutin' truffle din-din. So, we turned the truffly libation into a digestive, and while it's not proofed high enough to actually aid digestion, it was certainly tasty and that's really all that matters. We picked up the aperitif at Belle Hortense, a wine-bar/bookstore in the Marais neighborhood of Paris. You can buy it online here.

So, did our palettes get exhausted after tasting truffles five ways? No. This wasn't Iron Chef: Battle Truffle, so I had no obligation to make sure truffle was the dominant flavor in each dish. In nearly all of them, truffle was just a background flavor, adding a nice earth or musk to the dish. I'd definitely cook all of these dishes again, and perhaps even cook them all together.

Now I have to go figure out how many different ways I can use up the veritable stockpile of white turnips we have from the CSA.

Oh, and incidentally, I will start posting pictures of the food I cook. I just need to make sure my camera/phone/mp3 player/pda is charged when I start cooking...

Not those sorts of pasties

I was looking for something to do with leftover ground beef and root vegetables, and started googling around. One of the first hits for "turnip and ground beef" was a recipe for a "pasties" Now I had never heard of such things and assumed that it was just a misspelling of "pastries". Nevertheless, I clicked through to the site, trying not to let my mind conjure up images of burlesque dancers rolling in ground beef.

Believe it or not, this was actually my first foray into baking (besides Duncan Hines mixes), so I was pretty nervous about making a dough of any sort. I also knew I didn't want 6 pasties so I tried to adjust the measures for a single pasty. I guess that would have been no problem at all if I actually did the math or measured with any semblance of accuracy. Further complicating the mix (pun definitely intended), I don't have a stand mixer or a rolling pin. Lots of improvisation.

As you can see from the inlaid picture, it turned out pretty well. What's that you say? That inlaid picture looks suspiciously professional? Okay: you got me, the pic is ripped from thepastyshack.com's website. Mine turned out well, though. Buttery beefy baked goodness. I wish the innards were a little moister, however. I couldn't figure out how to squeeze butter through the slits as the recipe suggests. I'm excited to revisit this and try messing around with flavors and spices a bit more.

Here's the original recipe, courtesy of http://www.hu.mtu.edu/vup/pasty/recipes.htm:

Original Pasty

• 3 c. flour
• 1 1/2 sticks butter (cold and cut into bits)
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 6 tbsp. water
  

In a large bowl, combine flour, butter and salt. Blend ingredients until well combined and add water, one tablespoon at a time to form a dough. Toss mixture until it forms a ball. Kneed dough lightly against a smooth surface with heel of the hand to distribute fat evenly. Form into a ball, dust with flour, wrap in wax paper and chill for 30 minutes.

Filling

• 1 lb. round steak, coarsely ground
• 1 lb. boneless pork loin, coarsely ground
• 5 carrots, chopped
• 2 lg. onions, chopped
• 2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 c. rutabaga, chopped (can substitute turnip)
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
  

Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Divide the dough into 6 pieces, and roll one of the pieces into a 10-inch round on a lightly floured surface. Put 1 1/2 cups of filling on half of the round. Moisten the edges and fold the unfilled half over the filling to enclose it. Pinch the edges together to seal them and crimp them decoratively with a fork. Transfer pasty to lightly buttered baking sheet and cut several slits in the top. Roll out and fill the remaining dough in the same manner. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Put 1 tsp. butter through a slit in each pasty and continue baking for 30 minutes more. Remove from oven, cover with a damp tea towel, cool for 15 minutes.

Milwaukee Journal March 28, 1943 Welsh

Breakfast of Champions

Even before I became almost entirely nocturnal, I was never really a breakfast person. That said, while most dinners can serve double-duty as lunches, certain dishes just have to be called breakfast, no matter what time of day they're served.

While in Paris last week, my breakfasts (at 3pm, mind you) consisted of a fairly decadent (and entirely incongruous) spread of baguette, soft cheeses, fruit, caviar (the cheap black lumpfish stuff you can get at any grocery store), duck liver pate, nutella, and fig jam, washed down with a glass of blood orange juice and Mariage Freres' "Wedding Imperial" tea.

Back in the states, I've got a rotating repertory of "breakfast" dishes (usually served when most normal people are eating a late lunch):

Pancakes
I use Trader Joe's pancake mix and get pretty crazy with the add-ins. Two of my favorite recent creations: Lavender Chocolate Cherry and Matcha Chocolate. I treat pancake batter the way some people treat casseroles; it's an opportunity to use up any ingredients that have been sitting in the fridge or pantry for too long. No matter what I put in my pancakes (which are cooked on a cast iron skillet using cooking spray), I only put one thing on them and that's real maple syrup.

Fried Eggs on Grits
As simple as it sounds. I whip up some grits and then toss a fried egg on top. I either put a little truffle oil on the grits or a little tabasco on the egg.

Dutch Babies
Since this involves baking, a skillset which will forever elude me, I stick to this recipe, courtesy of whatscookingamerica.net:

3 eggs room temperature
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
1/2 cup sifted bread flour or all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
7 teaspoons butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Place a large, heavy ovenproof frying pan or a cast-iron skillet in the oven until hot and sizzling. While pan is heating, prepare your batter.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs until light and frothy; add milk, flour, vanilla extract, and cinnamon; beat for 5 minutes more. The batter will be thin, but very smooth and creamy.

Using a pot holder, remove the hot skillet from the oven; add the butter; tilting the pan to melt the butter and coat the skillet. Pour the prepared batter into the hot skillet, all at once, and immediately return the skillet to the oven.

Bake approximately 20 to 25 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

Remove from oven and serve immediately.

Well, I suppose I fudge the recipe a bit...I kind of go heavy on the vanilla, go light on the butter, and I throw in a dash of nutmeg for good measure. Now that I think of it, I also cook mine for about half the suggested time. I really stink at following recipes. Ah well, it always turns out tasty. Top it with whatever fresh fruit you have, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and/or maple syrup.

Maple Egg Cheddar Sausage Thing
I stole this idea from a Dunkin' Donuts morning muffin. Before that I had no idea one could mix meat, cheese, eggs, and maple syrup. I brown up some of the Gimme Lean Sausage (fat free, meat free, cholesterol free...and it really tastes like sausage!) and as the second side is browning, top it with some cheddar cheese. Once the cheese is melted, I stack the sausage on top of a dollop of maple syrup on a plate. Fry up an egg to top the whole thing off. Salt. Pepper. Tasty.

And that's basically what breakfast at my house looks like, though I'd be lying if I didn't admit to the occasional eggie-in-a-hole, frozen waffle, or (get ready to start hurling stones) poptart. If I'm choosing between cereal and no breakfast at all, I'll usually choose the latter, but if I go with cereal, it pretty much has to be with soy or rice milk as my lactose intolerance gets ugliest with cereal & milk for some reason (and yes, I've tried Lactaid and it only helps a little). I guess when all is said and done, I probably don't have the requisite sweet tooth that breakfast requires (and this means, to my dining companions' laments, that I also don't really have a "dessert stomach"...when I'm full, I'm full). So while I'll occasionally indulge in a syrup smothered dutch baby, I'll be much happier with Eggs Benedict (over smoked salmon and covered with cream spinach, like they do over at Popover Cafe). And speaking of Eggs Benedict, there's a recipe for Eggs Tomavo that caught my eye on Giada's Weekend Getaway (yes yes, guilty as charged!) that I'll have to try out at some point in the future.