the calm after the storm

after one of the strangest weeks of my life, i needed to do something to calm us down and somewhat bring us back to a sense of normality. ahhh, the comforts of food (and a favorite past time of mine as you'll see below!). with the sky still a little smoky and the air quality not quite back to healthy, i was left with having to pan fry $18 filet's. i really hate to do this as beef really should just be grilled, but i had to. instead of making a sauce for the filet's like i did last time, i made up a roasted garlic gorgonzola cheese spread. i did add a little red wine and demi glace reduction sauce at the end, but i really was pulling for the main additional flavor to come from the cheese. i've had something similar in restaurants and have always wanted to try it at home. i really do think this is my favorite way to have a filet mignon. course i've yet to duplicate an old gold fork favorite, the parmesan peppercorn filet. maybe that will be the next steak i cook!

i blanched some string beans and then seared them just a couple seconds in some butter and then added some roasted russet potatoes. our wine was a 2005 california merlot that was really quite tasty.



after dinner, marcela, christina, michael, and i carved pumpkins. i think this was the first time i carved a pumpkin since my woodbury days. i really do like it though. we really had a good time last night and it was needed after the tragedy of last weekends fires, which actually still burn as i write. all the families who are without a home or can't go back yet or have lost a friend or family member, you are in our prayers.

ksu 41 texas 21

if you can believe it, that was the conceptual work for this meal. i was so happy to have beaten texas for the second straight year that i decided i would use the game as inspiration for what i should cook for marcela and i.

i still had the left over short ribs from the dinner with my parents in the freezer. i decided i was gonna use those no matter what, but what would i cook with them? honestly, i walked into the grocery store and was still buzzing from our win that i couldn't stop thinking of KSU. then it dawned on me, why not use color only as a conceptual idea? after all, that's what gets so many people to think their dinner was good! so how can i take purple and orange and convey a message of victory???? well, let's start with a carrot-ginger puree that we can put everything on top of!! then, i needed something purple. i have never cooked purple potatoes so i decided this would be the perfect time to try. after counseling with my dad, i decided a diced purple potato hash would work perfectly for a concept of "purple all over orange". i really was proud of this dinner. not only did it result from the wildcats winning, it really made me feel i could come up with something from an abstract idea. so, let's go cats and big xii north title....here we come!!!

leftovers...

i realized i had some dinners i've cooked over the past few weeks that i haven't posted anywhere. they weren't necessarily planned or done for a special occasion, but i recall them being extremely tasty and if you're gonna have a food blog, you might as well post to it! if anything, it's a reminder that marcela and i actually do eat well, even if it seems like we haven't had a real grocery shopping adventure in a long time!

i am not gonna really describe these as i don't recall what i was thinking or what the conceptual thought process was. that does bring up something, even if i don't totally create a concept, i always try and make some sense out of what i plan. i really have an amazing amount of respect for true chefs out there. it's hard enough to plan something out for one dinner, but night after night of expectant guests...wow. sooo cool. if i didn't know anything about architecture, i might say cooking is the most bad ass profession out there!!!

so, without further ado...

filet mignon w/ chocolate wine sauce on string beans



bacon wrapped scallops over pepper rings

introduction to fall

so my parents came out to help with moving mami into her new house, for big dave and i to play some golf, and of course, for another entry to the cooking blog. i was able to finally get them to watch an episode of top chef for some inspiration. now it may have appeared that my dad was doing some heavy meditation for our dish, i think he really was just catching up on some much needed rest!!!

so, 7 days before the official turn of the season, we decided to go for some heavier fall flavors. however, i really like the concept of serving an amuse bouche and though it's somewhat supposed to prepare you for what's for dinner, i figured i'm no executive chef and with the proper dinner guest arrival libation, i wouldn't have to worry about anyone voting me off!! i poached a slice of salmon in some chicken bouillon, celery, onions, and basil and then whipped up a cucumber soup to serve in the brand new demitasse cups my parents bought for marcela. the best thing about this is that it was my mom's idea and she said she got it from reading this blog!! so, even if nobody out there really cares to read this, i can always count on my mom to constantly care about me...i love you mom.




for dinner we took and braised our short ribs for 4 hours in a onion and pepper bath. we eventually finished them off on the grill. ideally we'd have braised them a couple hours longer and grilled them a few minutes less, but as mentioned before, we're no executive chefs...yet! then we used some baby red potatoes and prepared a twice baked potato with them. the final product was braised short ribs with grilled peppers and twice-baked baby red potatoes.



for dessert my dad whipped up his mix-master qualifying brandy alexander...



regardless of how this actually turned out, i sure do love cooking with my dad. i hope we can take what we learned from this dinner and really use it to take this "hobby" to the next level.

memory

hey david, you STILL haven't posted. i know it's not that big of a deal, but i cooked this dinner a ways back and it was all about remembering the first (and only) dinner we've cooked together (post college) that has revealance to our shared passion. maybe this will inspire you. maybe it won't. i don't hold you accountable either way. all i'm trying to show is that i'm really happy we love cooking and share this passion!!!

cena di cinque

Finally I am getting around posting the wonderful dinner that Logan and I concocted on July 21, 2007. Sheila and I had spent nearly all of June in Italy, and I was dying to try some “stolen” ideas with Logan and Marcela. We had spent several days in Tuscany, a few in Rome, two on the coast in Cinque Terra and three lovely days in the Lake Como region (I strongly recommend that for all Italian visitors!!) I was struck by the lack of tomato gravies in the North of Italy, as that is what is usually associated with Italian cooking in my experience here, Stateside. We started the meal with proscuitto wrapped cantaloupe. That was offered everywhere we went and was always delicious and a very light starter. If you can, the Tuscan cantaloupe (it has the stripes on the sides, we called muskmelon growing up in Nebraska) is juicier and sweeter, and compliments the proscuitto better.




Logan then served one homemade ravioli, stuffed with mushroom and Muenster over a roasted tomato slice. We had meant for that to be a one bite starter, but the roasted tomato didn’t cooperate.




Having finished the antipasto portion of our evening, we next served al dente orzo, which had been cooked with minced fresh sage and basil, plus slices of dehydrated tomato. We stirred in parmesan and asiago cheese just before serving.




This was followed by the secundo, which in this case was a veal saltimbocca served over wilted spinach and accompanied by grilled eggplant, zucchini and red onion. Since I am not sure how to spell saltimbocca, had to concoct that recipe from my memory of the taste of a saltimbocca sauce that I had in Spolenta. The key to all such sauces I have had is the hint of lemon. I had pan fried the veal, then recaptured the meat juice with dry Vermouth and cream, added some minced basil and reduced it over low heat. (I think that I could have spent another 30 minutes on the reduction to develop a more creamy sauce.)




Our dessert was a late harvest zinfandel (Tobin James “Liquid Love”) served in small martini glasses to allow dipping of biscotti’s in the wine. That is a traditional dessert of Cinque Terra, and normally uses a sweet Italian wine (the name of which escapes me, but like late harvest zins, it is an 18% alcohol wine, and the secret is to dunk the cookie, not swig the wine!)




We pared the antipasto courses and the primo and secundo with a Chianti Classico. It led to a full evening, with great conversation and sharing. I can hardly wait for our next foray. I’m dying to try a Thai peanut sauce and something that uses Logan’s wasabi dressing for meat. Hopefully the next event will occur soon!

posting to post

okay, so i'm not all that impressed with the presentation of this meal, or my effort to create a nice presentation. oh how an unlimited budget at sur la table would do me...

anyway, this dish started at the meat counter at vons. i saw these gigantic fresh halibut steaks and remembered how as a kid, halibut was the only fish i'd come close to eating. as i grew up, i learned that halibut was actually a pretty bland tasting fish. however, the great thing about halibut was it's ability to bring together, and enhance, all the accompanying flavors of the dish. so, with that in mind, i decided i'd throw together some kind of "flavorful" halibut plate!

now to be honest, i am still just a rookie in the cooking field. i haven't mastered my tastes or honed down wine pairings. i basically just try recipes and/or flavors i like. this dish was definitely an experiment in this realm. marcela really, really likes eggplant and my parents returned from italy in june exhilarated about their experience as well as their eggplant encounter. so, that was the next ingredient. i've been reading a lot about the use of mint with eggplant so i made a mint yogurt dressing for some grilled, sliced eggplant. with the help of marcela's friend, brenda the culinary educated chef from new england, i put together a tomato ragout side. then, to top off the "bland" halibut, i simply drizzled it with a basil coulis. this dinner was actually very, very, very tasty, but my presentation was, at best, dismal. i really would like to buy a bunch of plates, utensils, serving platters, shooters, picks, saucers, porcelain demitasse's, you get the picture. but, for now, i'll relax and enjoy the fact that i've been blessed with the opportunity to purchase 2" bland halibut steaks!!!

nectarines

so it's hot now. june was awesome this year. normally we get may gray and june gloom, but this year was different. may was gray, but june was awesome. unfortunately for me, i planned on studying for another ARE throughout the supposed gloom. i can't tell you enough how hard it is to postpone a libation and fine dinner for something quick that facilitates stickin' your nose back in the books.

this past friday was the test day. beyond an earlier than usual happy hour beefeaters martini, i had plans to cook something fun, delicious, and commemorative of the time. pork is such a good meat to mix with fruit. most of the time one sees apples paired with pork, but with an abundance of summer fruits in our socal markets, i decided i'd try something else. the dinner was a pork chop with nectarine relish. grill a pork chop to your desired temperature. then, slice a nectarine in half and grill it til you have some marks. mix into a bowl with a little honey, balsamic vinegar, diced pine nuts, and some basil. i made a chipotle corn salad to go with this which was just roasted corn, sour cream, scallions, and diced chipotle peppers. i think the tastes went well together. a little zest vs. pretty much super sweet. we also drank a sauvignon blanc with this meal....

date night

(my apologies, this is being written 6 days after the fact...)

graduations, company, and commitments has led to a 5 week hiatus from "date night" for marcela and i. so, this past friday being void of any plans, we took advantage. the night began with a couple beers at a new TI (tenant improvement) bar I designed that had finally opened. There, we came up with a grocery list that would take care of our "normal" dinners and lunches for the next week. All that was left was deciding what we should cook that night for dinner. without any strong opinions from either side, i told marcela to head to the store while i researched my books and notes.

having had one of just about everything in the past week, and feeling awfully lethargic and "heavy", i decided we needed to have something light, something more vegan than carniverous, and whatever meat to be used, better have come from the sea! voila...a recipe for asparagus & oyster mushroom fricassee!!! now it didn't call for any kind of seafood, but i thought some pan-seared scallops would go nicely. unfortunately, as you'll see in the picture, the scallops were on the small size, and ended up a bit more braised than seared. however, this meal was fantastic. in fact, i ended up licking my plate because i couldn't get enough of the sauce. what do you think eric ripert would have to say about that!!! anyway, the recipe was pretty simple, i blanched a bunch of sliced asaragus for a couple minutes before refreshing in an icebath. then, i sauteed some [very] coarsely chopped and seasoned oyster mushrooms in some butter until they began to crisp. after they gained a little color, i added some chopped shallots and sauteed for another couple minutes. next, i added about a 1/4c white wine and let it marinate and reduce down to a couple tablespoons. after it had properly reduced, i added roughly the same amount of heavy cream and stirred until thick, then right before serving, i stirred in some chopped chives, parsley, and tarragon and then served. you can prepare the scallops anyway you'd like, i simply added some cumin and ground coriander to ours. we paired it with a bottle of cameron hughes, lot 25 sparkling wine.

David and Logan,
It has taken nearly a month for me to figure out how to post this picture, but this is a little quick meal that Sheila and I shared on the first 100 degree day in the Valley. A little Spring Mix with diced green onions, halved Cherub tomatoes and diced salami, with pear slices, apple slices, strawberries, blackberries, and ham/cheese, and chicken/cheese rolls. Very good and less than 20 minutes prep time. Great with a chilled Chenin Blanc!

dinner for one

well it's my last night alone. marcela returns tomorrow and i CAN'T WAIT!!! i've enjoyed the weekend to myself, but it's wearing old more and more with each passing minute. i think i did just about everything i wanted to coming into today, but i realized i hadn't done any cooking. normally i wouldn't want to cook for just myself as it's so much more fun cooking for others, as i've mentioned before, but with one night remaining and nothing on tap, i decided it was okay.

for tonight's dinner, i decided to try something i'm not at all experienced with. not necessarily the technique involved, but the flavors. i almost had sushi this afternoon as that was the flavor i was really hungry for, but i didn't and so i decided to go that route for dinner. i had found this recipe a long time ago, but hadn't had the craving. i have to say the flavors were amazing and i'd never have thought i'd find myself eating wasabi with steak!!! it was a really easy recipe and only took about 30 minutes to prepare. however, finding the right ingredients took me to 3 different grocery stores and about an hour and a half of my time!

i had the nori sheets leftover from making homemade sushi. for this recipe i coarsely processed 2 sheets with a teaspoon of crushed red peppers, a tablespoon of sesame seeds, and a teaspoon of black pepper. i then dredged a sirloin steak in this seasoning and pan fried it on both sides just until the nori was crispy. meanwhile, i blanched the ends of some scallions and whisked together a mix of soy sauce, mirin (which i used sake and some sugar as a replacement) and a teaspoon of olive oil. i removed the stems from some shitake mushrooms and placed them gill side down on a rack placed on a cookie sheet. after the steaks were seared, i placed them on top of the mushrooms and placed it in a 400 degree preheated oven for roughly 10 minutes. i actually had powdered wasabi for this too. i would STRONGLY suggest using powdered wasabi as opposed to the tube variety. it's so much better.

if you like the flavors you experience by going out for sushi, this is definitely something you should try. also, if you are a little shy about trying sushi, you may want to give this recipe a whirl and familiarize yourself with the flavors you'll experience by eating a somewhat pacific oriented cuisine.

wine for a ten course dinner

Stimulated by my son's creativity

Logan has done it again! His creativity just turns on the right side of my brain (miniscule as it is) and gets me to want to create dishes. Mom had seen a recipe in a Simple magazine for asparagus and prosuitto with just salt, pepper and a touch of oil. Well, I could not do something that simple, so when I came home from Starbuck's today I whipped up a reduction of 2TBS of molasses, 2TBS of soy sauce, and one TBS of balsalmic vinegar. Then I crisped some prosuitto in the oven at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. While I was doing this, I steamed some fresh green beans (about 2 large handfuls.) I then soaked the partially cooked beans in iced water for about 15 minutes. I then crumbled the prosuitto, mixed it with about a tsp of diced scallion and a tsp of diced garlic. After tossing all the vegetable ingredients well, I added the reduction sauce and refrigerated the entire business for about an hour, which so happened to be just the appropriate time for a libation!
I then served the cold beans (modestly crunchy) with a grilled piece of halibut. Like I said before, when Mrs. A gives it a two thumbs up, that means something. It's another good hot evening meal. Maybe this will be the best Summer, yet!!l
BIG DAVE

spring time

my cooking bug is back. making something with my dad got me back in the game, or so i hope...

spring is definitely here and so are light menu's loaded with fruits and vegetables. i'm pretty excited as i think i've been lazy about cooking because i've worn out all the heavy winter meals that have me crawling into bed only minutes after washing the last dish!!

ever since cooking a filet with a chocolate wine sauce a couple years ago, i've been interested in how many different flavors you can pair with meats. sweet, spicy, zesty, salty, bitter, tangy, the list goes on and on. now i've never been good at eating fruits, both my mom and marcela can attest to this, but i know that if i have to eat fruit, i'd prefer something tart or a bit sour. so i did a little research and found out that a lot of scottish lamb dishes are paired with berries. this was perfect. we had lamb chops in the freezer!! so i went on to find this recipe and decided to give it a try.

the blackberry relish is made by sauteeing the blackberries with sugar until they've softened up a bit. then, in a separate dish, mix together some chopped mint, olive oil, prepared horseradish, and lime juice. add the softened berries to the mix and softly stir until well blended. you can grill or pan fry the lamb, but it's best to cook no more than medium. the salad here is just shredded english cucumber with whole milk yogurt. i added a little chopped mint as garnish to add even more refreshment. we had a 2004 cabernet-shiraz with this meal. i thought the wine was a pretty good match. anything light, but red, would be good with this meal.

cooking with my son

Three additional photos of the "meal." What a great evening with my son and his wife. Thank you, Logan and Marcela, for sharing this evening with Mom and me. The entire week-end was fantastic.
David, send me the e-mail about your foundation. I am super interested and think that you have touched on the most neglected area of modern medicine, that is the relationship of physician to his patient.

rained in

so my parents visited this weekend for a few reasons. to pick up my old mattress, to partake in my church's home building ministry, and of course to let my dad (big dave) and i play some golf! well, two of three activities came to fruition...golf, was not one of them. we attempted to get a round in on friday, but after 9 holes we were soaked and freezing. we decided to call it quits. that may have been the first (and hopefully only) time my dad and i will ever walk off a golf course short of the 18th green. since it was only 2:00pm, and we weren't expecting to be home til 5, we were left with coming up with something to do. a glass of chardonnay and some pei wei cuisine later, we came up with cooking dinner. now we didn't need any incentive to cook together, but having this blog site set up really provided some inspiration to do something extravagant. after all, this would be the first collaborative post. i knew i had a pork tenderloin in the freezer that needed to be eaten so we decided to force ourselves to design around that. then, to add a sense of challenge, we decided to go home and test the refrigerator to see what we had and how we could improvise instead of just buying everything new. we had shallots, carrots, ginger, heavy cream, shredded parmesan, and a tiny bit of prosciutto. all we'd need from the store was another couple slices of prosciutto and a vegetable. while at the store, i felt the need to come up with a dessert as well. since our company included my mom and my wife, i knew chocolate would be a winner.

splitting cooking duties went amazingly smooth. my dad took control of the asparagus, the carrot-ginger puree, and of helping both marcela with her appetizers and all 4 of us with our libations. meanwhile, i prepped the tenderloin by cutting it transversely in approximately 1" x 2.5"dia. pieces. i then wrapped them with a slice of prosciutto and then dredged them with a light layer of crushed pecans. while i was doing this, i had a pan on the stove simmering together the semi-sweet morsels, sugar, and water for my chocolate sorbet.

this meal was amazing. besides my 5 course new years eve dinner, this may have been my finest home cooked meal ever. it was soo much fun too. i've cooked with my dad plenty of times before, but not necessarily like this. i thought everything not only turned out good aesthetically, but more importantly, it tasted soooo good. the flavors all complimented each other so perfectly.

something that must be mentioned, and i'd like to get into this, but that's another post, is my dad's suggestion of a sparkling shiraz from australia. W-O-W. marcela and i are hooked. i've never had a sparkling red before and i've got to say, i'm VERY impressed. in fact, i write this on tuesday night, 3 nights later, and we are actually having another bottle tonight!

Sheila picked this menu from a diabetic cookbook. The chicken was great (made with a plum sauce and Asian spices) and the broccoli and peppers were similarly spiced. Went well with a almond cream dessert and an Argentinian Torrontes. From a vineyard named LoTengo, and I emphatically endorse their wines, both the Torrontes, a white, and their malbec.
Who knows what happened here, but clearly I didn't make alphabet stew!
BIG DAVE

Big Dave's first blog. Technology has tried very hard to pass me by, but the opportunity to share culinary delights allows this old geezer to plug through, of course with much help. I threw the above concoction together with Mrs. A 8 days ago and then took the pictures, one of which is above, to post on the blog. Sheila and I worked like mad to get the picture posted, but it took the next generation to pull the strings to let me be e-literate!

This was mashed red yams, mashed in a blender with heavy cream and butter, after boiling diced yams for 30 minutes. The entree was a boneless chicken breast sauteed to brown it, then I sauteed mushrooms, onion, "Hatch-type" pepper and red pepper in the chicken residue.

I pulled the veggies, put the chicken back in the pan, added one cup of chicken broth and simmered the chicken for 30 more minutes. I added the veggies back for the last 10 minutes. It tasted even better than it looked, but Mrs. A said that she would have preferred that I had sauteed the yam as well.

What do you think of that for an old fart?

applebee's

i'm always humbled by my aunt marcie's generosity at Christmas time. i know she can't possibly have all that much money, but she always spends so much on my siblings and myself. it's been even more gratuitous upon getting married. in recent years, her simple request of a list has been neglected by the pace of life and/or sheer laziness. this has resulted in her just sending gift cards. this year, along with the staple best buy winner, she threw in a gift card to applebee's. as an amateur food connoisseur, one would assume i don't eat at places like applebee's. well, you're wrong on two major levels. 1) unless you're a vegetarian (with this i hope i haven't awoken a craving), don't tell me you don't like a chicken fingers basket, and 2) have you tried any of their new marketing meals dreamed up by chef tyler florence? the latter of these two points is what makes me write tonight. i think it's pretty cool that a chain restaurant would actually look into the quality of their food with some serious consideration. now i know most of this is aimed more at revenue than reviews, but i still think it shows something. after all, not everyone can afford a $64 filet...WITHOUT a side dish! if we want people to learn to eat well and to eat for flavor as opposed to hunger, we must make a move towards this at the majority level. in other words, more family-style, chain restaurant's should follow in applebee's footsteps.

so, besides making some kind of statement, which i don't really like doing anyway, i decided to use chef florence's bruschetta burger as inspiration for marcela and i tonight with a blue cheese, mushroom turkey burger!!

lack of progress

i havent cooked anything worth writing about in a couple of months. .. hopefully i will change that this weekend!

memory

the best thing about cooking lies in it's offering nature. there are many satisfaction levels involved with the creation, preparation, production, and presentation of cooking, but none of these can compare to the feeling you get from providing a meal. one of my fondest memories of this act dates back to my childhood. my dad would get up early and cook my mom breakfast on mother's day and then get all of my siblings up and we'd all go in and wake her up and sit in bed with her while she ate and then read our homemade cards. it was such a simple act, but you could just tell the appreciation and enjoyment she got from it. i don't know what spurred this thought today, but i woke up earlier than marcela did this morning and i decided to make her breakfast. it wasn't anything fancy, as you can see, but it felt really good and brought back a great memory!