a r e

the worst part about studying is when right before you open up your textbook, you realize that just because it comes across as a FOOD blog, doesn't mean it's only for food...

sometime after thanksgiving last year, marcela and i came across a magazine called IMBIBE. it's kind of like all the other food/wine magazines except it's really focused on drinks. personally, i'm a traditionalist when it comes to drinks, but somehow i think that's just a result of being conservative. both sides have their place, but presently, i'm reminded of how excited i was over a year ago to read about all these unique "fun" drinks. we ended up buying a few different bottles of liqueurs and schnapps to try a couple drinks, but we ended up left with a lot of 1/2 bottles of liquor i didn't know how to drink.

since i need to study, i'll cut this one short. this is our leftover CAMPARI (which can be used quite a bit, but like i said, i'm too conservative and like my REGULAR...) with some leftover roasted lemonade shooters juice (yes dave, from the 11 courser). i crushed up a bit of fresh mint and added sugar to taste. marcela thought it was a bit too tart, but i like tart. it was hers so i ended up adding the sugar...

back to sling psychrometer's and makeup air handling units...

appssert

i've always been interested in doing a "dinner" party that actually wasn't dinner, but more of an appetizer and dessert. so, since we had a really large, moderately unhealthy lunch, i decided i'd try a menu idea i've had for such an event...

it's a cauliflower steak with a carmel sauce pear dessert. the cauliflower steak is pretty simple, just cut out your steak from the head of cauliflower, then braise and puree what's leftover. i added some pearl onions to the puree to give it just enough contrast from the cauliflower steak. i rubbed the steaks with some olive oil and then sauteed them for a couple minutes on each side before putting them in the oven for ten minutes to finish. spoon a hearty portion of the puree onto a plate and then top with a steak.

as for the dessert, everything i tried seemed to work out well except that i used some leftover gorgonzola cheese and i shouldn't have. it was good, but it was too strong for this recipe. start by cutting some pears in half and scooping out the seeds. then heat a generous portion of butter in a frying pan to which you'll add the pears, cut side down. add about a tablespoon and a half of honey to the pears and then cover the pan and let cook until tender. remove the pears and add a teaspoon of cheese to the hole leftover from the seeds. let them sit and add some pine nuts to the honey/butter (caramel) mixture. sprinkle some salt and cook for about 2 minutes. drizzle this sauce over the pears and serve! you really can use any pear and any cheese, but like i said, the gorgonzola was a little too strong in my opinion. also, i think seckel pears are great to use for this because they're so small. any pear will do though.

saint valentine

2 for 2

ok, so tonight's post is 90% not worth writing, but the 10% that is works for me.

like i said last night, we are short on cash until thursday. as a result of our fast, we had a huge piece of frozen salmon in the fridge that needed to be eaten. i pulled it out of the freezer this morning before leaving for work. i figured instead of checking my myspace and gmail 10 times throughout the day, i'd run a couple search engines for salmon recipes. the main reason being that i'm tired of always cooking something sweet and sugary with salmon! i've gone 3 days without anything spicy and i think i'm about to convulse!

so as the day wears on, i see all sorts of recipes and concepts about flavors that go with salmon. the thing for me though is that no matter what kind of glaze or sauce i cook with/for salmon, i ALWAYS taste pure salmon. what could possibly mask the bold flavor of this wonderful fish...then, i find it...scotch bonnet herb sauce for salmon! are you kidding me!!! scotch bonnet??? well, i unfortunately didn't have any scotch bonnet chile's in my fridge, but i did have a wilted old habanero left over from the fast and thought this couldn't be more perfect!

so, to make this dish, cook the salmon however you like. while it cooks, reduce a 1/2 cup of riesling down to about a 1/4 cup and set a side to cool. meanwhile, dice a tablespoon or so of cilantro (left over from some homemade salsa!!), a tablespoon of chives, and a tablespoon of basil. all of these are better if fresh, but if not, dry will certainly do. then, mix 2 tablespoons of mayo with a tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl. add the cooled wine reduction and the rest of the herbs. plate the salmon and drizzle the dressing/sauce over the top. we added a couple slices of sourdough that i actually had marcela buy fresh tonight. i know, it makes me a hypocrite, but she was at the store buying ingredients for a dinner we're making our small group leaders to thank them for their hospitality and commitment and i thought hey, a loaf of bread can't be that much right? would they really confiscate my car for a loaf of bread?

anyway, i don't mean to lower the standards of this blog by writing every night, but i thought this was a good meal as well as a worthy story to tell. also, does it really matter? are there any rules about posting to a blog? isn't the purpose of a blog to post to? well, even if i'm wrong, i'm gonna keep cooking and writing!

capers

as a result of spending a little too much lately, marcela and i are left making due with what's in the fridge until thursday. this is a good thing as it makes me concentrate my efforts and hone my skills. it's also good as it allows us to use up some things in the fridge thus preventing food waste, something i dislike more than even energy waste. so, since marcela had a half sandwich from THE COTTAGE leftover, i was on my own for my dinner...

knowing that marcela had her own dinner planned, i wanted to cook something that i know she's not a huge fan of. as i scoured the fridge, i came across some capers that i've barely touched since i bought towards the end of summer. i pulled out a chicken breast to thaw and began to plan a meal around capers and chicken. my results are as follows...

i got a pot of water going for some pasta and then heated up a skillet to brown the chicken breast. after cooking the chicken for roughly 4 minutes a side, i transfered it to the oven to finish cooking. i added some diced shallots and garlic to the frying pan and sauteed them for about a minute before adding just under a cup of chicken stock. i let that mixture reduce down to a couple tablespoons. now normally i'd add some whipping cream or heavy cream to this mix, but since the theme was to use up food in the fridge, i swapped the cream for some plain yogurt i used in a sauce this weekend. so i put a heaping tablespoon of yogurt into the reduced stock and then added a tablespoon of whole grain mustard and a tablespoon of capers. i mixed these together (lower the heat after the stock has reduced or you'll be left with paste!) and stirred them until fully warmed and mixed. then, i drained my pasta (linguine was what we had and i'd suggest using it for this dish) and added it to the sauce, stirring together before plating it. be sure to leave just enough sauce in the pan to drizzle over the chicken. as a side note, i seasoned my chicken in lemon pepper and it's a great seasoning for this dish, or any chicken and capers dish!

this picture is of a half eaten dinner, as you can see, and is the result of not planning for a post. i really didn't think this would turn out that great and wasn't really planning to share something i scraped together. however, it really ended up good and i'm just so fired up about cooking now and writing about it. not that i can write that well (or even cook that well) but i just love it. it's just so much fun to make eating an experience. forcing yourself to be resourceful and to take advantage of something we're so privileged to get to do. a minimum of 3 times a day none-the-less!! i feel like it's the best way for me to slow down and relax. anyway, i think this was good and definitely worth trying, especially if you've bought capers for a recipe and don't know how to finish them off! i should say that if you're not a salty taste or mustard type person, you may not like this dinner as it's pretty strong on those flavors!

in keeping with the theme, i added a picture of the wine we finished tonight. it was leftover too! and good!

super saturday

somehow i don't think it's fair that today is called super tuesday. especially when saturday night was exponentially more super...at least to me it was...

my good friend brian and his girlfriend came to town to escape the dreariness that is minnesota in the winter. it had been a long time since i've seen him and i had never met his girlfriend. i was very excited about the weekend. it was also going to provide me a couple new palettes to attempt to please. i had done my best to find out any dislikes or allergies ahead of time and was left with quite a bit of freedom. however, i also was out to impress mostly with flavor and not as much with pure creativity. [course maybe that was because we were only a week out of our 3 week fast!] so i decided i'd cook something they would totally be familiar with, possibly even have tried before. that being said, the short and skinny of my theme was STEAK AND SHRIMP.

because i love doing multiple small courses instead of one heaping plate of food, i thought i'd split this traditional meal up. i have a cookbook that has a recipe for grilled shrimp with parsnip custard and microwave popcorn sauce that i'd been dying to try. of course something like this is NECESSARY to try at least once before attempting to impress with! well, i did, the week before and it was awesome. it also required the purchase of some new 2oz oven-safe ramekins that i think will be used a LOT in amuse's to come!!

then, to allow me some time to cook the steaks (and to have a course that could kind of just sit there for awhile unattended), i made a butternut squash and leek soup that i had last made december 31, 2006. i knew it was good and i couldn't wait to serve it. by the sounds from the dinner table, i could have made more, but i still had 2 courses left so i wasn't all that worried.

my entree course was a steak and homemade french fries with multiple dipping sauces. after all, who doesn't like steak and fries?!? so i prepped the filet mignon's by sauting a mixture of portobello mushrooms and some butcher's cut bacon (i added a little rosemary for good measure). as i let the filet's marinate with their stuffing, i cut up some fingerling, red, and purple potatoes for my homemade french fries. i already had most of my sauce ideas, a parmesan peppercorn dip, a fresh salsa, and a dijon mustard aioli, but i needed a 4th. i wanted to do a sweet&spicy barbecue sauce, but i wanted it to be homemade and i needed it to be quick and fast. i had to consult with my dad on this one and even though i omitted half of the ingredients from his "reduced" version, it still turned out really good. i think it was because i used heinz ketchup and serrano chile's (by the way, serrano's have now taken over jalapeno's as my chile of choice...tolerance baby, tolerance...they're just daintier and hotter!). i also used balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. i grilled the filet's for a few minutes on both sides and then added them to the oven with the fries that had deep fried for about 3 minutes each to par cook. with about 5 minutes remaining on the steaks, i pulled them out and sprinkled some gorgonzola cheese over the tops and put them back in to allow it to brown. there's something about serving a filet that just can't be beat. rarely do people "bbq" filet's. most typically men walk in and argue themselves into the 34oz london broil because they want steak that bad and the $10 in their wallet has to cover a six pack of something fairly decent in addition, obviously not leaving any room for veggies... then, one hour later, they realize they made a horrible mistake and are left blaming their college found steak knives as the reason they can't quite hack their way through the medium-rare shoe. (as a note here, london broil is very good if prepared correctly...i have done it, just trying to make a point about filet's). filet's are left for your biannual trip to a nice steakhouse. nobody wants to throw down $12 on a steak from the grocery store, but they seem to justify $38 at a restaurant, though to be fair, the $12 tanqueray ten usually encourages that act of manliness... anyway, i just think filet's are a great cut of meat and if you're gonna eat steak, do it right. AND, if you really enjoy entertaining people with food, remember the golden rule...

dessert was something i LOVE making and haven't made since i lived in PB. a double chocolate terrine with blood orange sorbet....honestly, does that need more description?