Inspired again…

It’s been far too long since I’ve written in this blog.  I’ve taken up home canning, putting up 6 gallons of roasted tomato sauce, stewed rhubarb, and rhubarb-strawberry jam – with plans for apple butter and pumpkin butter in the fall.  Matt and I have also started our “Seasonal Favorites” list – a list by month of season-specific recipes or ingredients we must use – which will be posted on this blog in the next few days.  I’ll try to post a little more regularly, but I am also blogging over at bellecoeurwedding.wordpress.com to assist in planning our wedding.  Check it out!

Today I’d like to post a recipe for a dish I made up on a whim last night, feeling the chill in the air and longing for comfort food: Sausage and Apple Pockets.  Unfortunately there will be no photos, as Matt and I ate them all up.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs bulk breakfast sausage (or bulk sausage of your choice)

1 crisp  sweet apple, cored and diced, such as Braeburn, Pink Lady, or Honey Crisp.  Check out the Washington Apple Commission for suggestions. I left the skin on mine, because I think it adds flavor.  Do as you see fit.

1/2 of a medium Walla Walla Sweet Onion, diced.  If you can’t find Walla Walla onions in your store, you have my deepest sympathy.  You can use Vidalia, Mayan, or Maui, or any other sweet onion varieties.

1 package frozen puff pastry sheets, like Pepperidge Farm.  You’ll need two sheets, thawed to room temperature.

4 oz. Extra Sharp White Cheddar cheese, diced. I used half of an 8 oz. block of Tillamook Vintage White.  It’s crumbly, so save those little shavings and crumbs, you’ll need them.

1 egg + 1 tablespoon water, beaten (for egg wash)

Salt, pepper, and/or whatever seasonings you want in the sausage.  Since I used a very mild breakfast sausage, I just added Johnny’s Seasoning Salt, which has all the salt and pepper I wanted.  If you decide to use an Italian Sausage or Linguica, etc, you’ll likely not need this.

Optional: a few pinches of a crunchy, light salt, like fleur de sel.  I used a flaky pink Murray River salt from Australia.

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Brown the sausage in a skillet with the diced onion.

Place a Silpat or a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet.

Unfold a sheet of the puff pastry dough, cut it into four even squares, and place them on the lined baking sheet, with about an inch or so between each.  You can roll the pastry dough out if you wish, but try not to roll or handle it too much, as it will lose its “puff.”  Do the same for the other sheet and set aside.

Divide the diced apples and cheddar equally among the four sqaures of pastry dough.  I just put them in little piles in the center of the squares.

When the sausage and onions are done, scoop equal amounts onto the pastry squares with the apple and cheese.  It doesn’t have to be pretty, just make sure it’s all contained in the square.  You may have a tiny bit of extra sausage.  Don’t worry, just snack on it while these are baking!

Place the reserved squares of puff pastry on top of the sausage, apple, and cheese mixure.  Press your fingers around the sides to seal the pockets.  Brush the egg wash over the tops of the pockets and sprinkle the cheese crumbs from the cutting board over the tops of each.  I sprinkled a little of the crunchy pink salt on the tops of mine, just for a little kick of flavor.

Place baking sheet in oven for 15-20 minutes.  They’ll be done when the edges of the puff pastry turn golden brown.

Serves 4.

We ate ours for dinner with a knife and fork, served with a little roasted acorn squash.  Then we heated the other two up this morning at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, and had them for breakfast with coffee.

I will definitely be making them again….

 

Autumn Harvest…

Tonight, recipes posted for simple indulgent treats that you can make with some of fall’s most tasty colors:

California Black Mission Fig & Cardamon Aquavit

• 2 pints California black mission figs (or other type of figs, whatever’s available at your market)
• ½ cup cardamon pods
• 1 to 2 liters good potato vodka (I used Vikingfjord)
• Large jar with a screw top, or flip-top, lid that is airtight

Wash figs well by gently rising and rubbing with your fingers under lukewarm water. Set on a paper towel to drain, then slice into halves or quarters, depending on your jar size.  Place figs in jar, sprinkle on the cardamon pods, then fill the jar ¾ full with the vodka, and save the bottle.  Close the top and invert jar a few times to mix, then let sit for 6-8 weeks (I know! it’s a long time to wait but it is worth it), inverting the jar once a week to keep the mixture from separating during infusion.

After the vodka infusion smells sufficiently like cardamon and fig, strain the liquid through a sieve, lined with cheesecloth, into a bowl.  Bring out the original vodka bottle (or bottles) and pour the stained aquavit into the bottle using a funnel.  Serve ice cold — with soda or over ice if it’s too strong — and store in the freezer.

Bosc Pear, Madagascar Vanilla Bean and Black Peppercorn Aquavit

• 3 Bosc pears (or other variety of pears, depending on availability)
• ½ cup black peppercorns
• 2 vanilla beans
• 1 to 2 liters good potato vodka (see above)
• Large jar with airtight lid

Wash, core, and halve the pears and place them in the jar.  Pour the peppercorns into the jar over the pears.  With a paring knife, make slits along the lengths of the two vanilla beans on both sides, allowing their flavor to come out easier into the infusion.  Put the beans in the jar and cover with vodka, ¾ full, as above.

Continue directions as for the fig/cardamon infusion.  The pears may also be served after the infusion is complete — just slice them up and put them on a plate for guests at a party.

Concord Grape Sorbet

• 2 pints unsweetened concord grape juice (or 1 lb concord grapes, simmered over medium heat, then strained of seeds and skins)
• ¾ cup simple syrup
• 3 TBS lemon juice
• ¼ cup cold water
• ½ TSP dry gelatin

1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small cup and let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.

2. Bring the syrup to a simmer in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the gelatin, stirring until it is completely dissolved. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the grape and lemon juices and stir. Let cool.

3. Pour the sorbet base into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until ready to serve.

Golden Bell Pepper Sorbet

• 3 large golden bell peppers, seeded, cored, and pureed in a food processor, then strained until you have about a pint of juice
• ½ cup simple syrup
• ¼ cup cold water
• ½ TSP dry gelatin

1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small cup and let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.

2. Bring the syrup to a simmer in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the gelatin, stirring until it is completely dissolved. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the bell pepper juice and stir. Let cool.

3. Pour the sorbet base into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until ready to serve.

These two sorbets are perfect when served together.  They balance each other well — the sweetness of the bell pepper contrasts the tart grapes.  Plus, the colors are gorgeous!

Stay tuned for images!

 

No wonder we’re all fat and dying….

Ugh.

I am disgusted by the “American” diet, and the companies and organizations that are trying to defend it. To may shock and horror, I have recently seen advertisements defending high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from people who don’t really know why it’s bad and eating fast food for dinner instead of cooking at home because it is cheaper. I am angry enough to spit nails, and SOMEBODY has to say something.

Argument #1: High Fructose Corn Syrup is Natural and Fine in Moderation.

Rebuttal:

The advertisements put out by in the Corn Refiners Association paint people who are cautious about HFCS as un-informed — not knowing why HFCS is considered bad — while the main argument is that HFCS is “natural” and “fine in moderation.”  The problem with that is that unfortunately, people don’t eat the foods that contain HFCS in moderation.  It’s nearly impossible to find a processed food that does not contain HFCS in some form or another; therefore we are ingesting HFCS at incredibly high levels if we eat processed foods.  The CRA website is full of snide quips, scoffing at people who question the nutritional value of HFCS and other wet-milled corn products.  One headline in the Newsroom is entitled “As School Starts Again, Moms Express Nutrition Concerns — Yet Real Culprits Often Overlooked.”  Sure, there are many substances in the food we eat and feed our children that may cause obesity, low-energy, and other ailments — but HFCS is still a problem.

Eating too much of any one substance is a problem — even if it is considered wholesome.  I read an article about food-goddess Nigella Lawson’s husband, Charles Saatchi:  apparently, he used to eat cookies, ice cream, and cereal in bed all the time and he ballooned to nearly 400 pounds.  Not a surprise there.  So, to lose the weight, he eats nothing but eggs — 3 eggs, 3 times a day.  Yes, he has lost the weight, but his doctors are screaming at him to stop.  He’s got a record high cholesterol level, and virtually no nutrition, save the protein he derives from the eggs.  He is almost undoubtedly inducing ketosis — the digestive process of burning fat instead of sugars which was once hailed by the Atkins diet and has since been proven to be extremely dangerous.

The same goes for too much sugar, HFCS, water, starch, alcohol, EVERYTHING!  The key to a healthy, complete and balanced diet is variety!  Something that, as the Slow Food guru Michael Pollan writes in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is not common in the average American diet.  Something like 75% of our diet is made up of corn or corn derived ingredients.  Imagine what that is doing to us.  Oh yeah, it’s making diabetes one of the fastest growing adult (and juvenile) diseases to afflict the American population.

Rebuttal #2: Fast Food is Better than Cooking Because it is Cheaper.

KFC (the heart attack depot formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken), has launched a new campaign to end healthy home-cooked meals across the country.  The so-called “$10 Challenge” commercial shows a mother and her two children going to the grocery store to pick out the ingredients it would take to home-prepare a fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and biscuits.  (Hello!  Where are the vegetables?  I’ll touch on that in a minute.)  The kids rush around the store, picking up refrigerated chicken parts, a box of potato flakes, a sack of flour, oil, etc — all while their mother stands by the exit with a smug look on her face.  She adds up what the ingredients cost and if it comes to more than $10, they will buy dinner at KFC.  Of course, the ingredients (which could cover the preparation of at least 5 dinners for a family of 4), cost more than $10.  The kids cheer, and they head over to KFC for some arterial plaque and rehydrated malnourishment.  Oh, but they now use oil that is trans fat free, so it should all even out.

Yikes.  Not only does this encourage parents not to cook for their children, it also makes kids think that KFC is BETTER than a home-cooked meal.  I am so irked by this that I don’t know where to start.  The vegetables!  Nowhere in the pictured KFC chicken dinner are there vegetables.  You get fried chicken, “mashed potatoes” with gravy, and a biscuit.  You can also option for potato wedges, mac and cheese, baked beans, or corn on the cob.  None of these are vegetables.  The potatoes, pasta and corn are starch, while the beans are a starchy protein.  None of these have the nutrients in which this meal is sorely lacking.  The beans are probably the most nutritious, but then the sauce they are cooked in is likely loaded with brown sugar, or HFCS.  Cooking at home is not always going to guarantee that you get a vegetable in there, but it would help.  At least you have the option, and you can choose whatever veggie the kids will eat — give them raw baby carrots or snap peas, if that’s what it takes!

Cooking at home, while initially more expensive, is also convenient in that it stocks your kitchen or pantry with the ingredients to make other foods, other meals.  The grocery bill isn’t just for one meal, it’s for many.  My mother, as you may have read in an earlier post, was not the most adventurous in the kitchen.  But she cooked at home, every night, and on many occasions, I’d help.  Only once every several weeks would we have a prepared meal from a fast food place or takeout restaurant — and only if we were too busy to cook that night.  Cooking the meal at home, I got to spend time with my mother, learning how to cook and feed myself — usually without a microwave — and I learned to appreciate the effort that went into feeding a family of 5.  Kids who are only fed on fast food — and yes, as disgusting as it sounds, there are people who do this to their families — do not appreciate food, and they do not appreciate their parents’ hard work to feed them.  They will not understand what goes into food, how to feed themselves other than through the drive-up window, and they will not know that another option exists.  It continues a vicious cycle of obesity and malnutrition.

As for the argument that it is cheaper…..Americans spend less of their monthly incomes on food than any other country in the world — mostly because we’ve been “blessed” with cheap food.  Most of that cheap food is processed to the point where you can’t find a whole ingredient on the label.  I liken food processing to the lumber industry.  Once upon a time, a whole tree was used — think log cabins and heavy beams — expensive, but strong, and lasting.  In the 20th century, they figure out how to make more from a tree, and came up with plywood — still strong, but somewhat processed and not quite as highly valued.  Today, whole trees are chopped into small flakes and particles to make chipboard and MDF — the cheapest and weakest possible product out of something that was once whole and better.  With food, when you up the processing and drop the price, you end up with a product that tastes very much like MDF, and has about the same nutritional value.

EQUALS =        

The moral of this post is this: If we spend a little more money on even a little better (or more local, or less processed, or more varied) food, we can be healthier.  It’s really that simple.

 

Oh man….

I’ve not been a very good blogger.  I could make excuses — and good ones! — but they’d just be excuses.

Over the past 6 weeks, amid dentist appointments, exhibit de-installation and installation at my museum, visitors and visits, I have actually been thinking about this blog and where it is going.

Unfortunately, I think it will be updated less often, but I have committed to working on it more regularly. As other projects come up (I’m in the process of developing an Etsy store, writing a novel, and sewing a dress to wear while I officiate a wedding) this will fall by the wayside.  I guarantee, however, that I will always feel guilty about it.

For today, however, I’ll leave you with a list of links to my favorite foodie blogs:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/

http://www.culinate.com/

http://havecakewilltravel.com/

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/

http://tamaramurphy.typepad.com/the_life_of_a_pig/

http://nookandpantry.blogspot.com/

http://pikeplacemarketblog.com/

http://www.rootsandgrubs.com/

http://www.slowfoodblog.org/

http://slowfoodnation.org/

http://tilthblog.wordpress.com/

http://dida.unisg.it/

http://www.whatgeekseat.com/wordpress/

Next week, M., M.’s parents, and I will be exploring Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.  I’ll bring back photos of some choice chanterelle hunting spots, Dungeness Bay crabs, and whatever else I can forage for our meals — possibly at the Lake Quinault Lodge.

 

I am back….really, this time.

Hello again!

I am sorry for the delay of nearly a month….I have good reasons for not updating, however. #1 is that I was RIDICULOUSLY busy. We got back from Boston, had one big weekend of cleaning before having my 16 year-old sister Audrey to stay with us for a week. The next weekend we spent catching up with our Ballard gang and getting ready for a friend from Boston to stay with us (getting horribly drunk when he did) and this weekend we tried to go camping in Long Beach, WA, and turned around a day early to come back to our home sweet home because we missed it so much.

In the meantime, I got very busy at work (I don’t want to talk about it) then I broke a tooth, had $900 worth of blood tests done by my new endocrinologist, and was finally conclusively diagnosed with both PCOS and hypothyroidism. My tooth is due to be fixed on thursday, and I’m on synthetic hormones for my thyroid, but I’m not feeling better yet. My appetite has been nil for weeks, but I can’t seem to shed my hormonal fleshy baggage. We’re reassessing the dosage in a week or so, so hopefully it’ll all work out soon.

Excuse over.

I’m reenergized by a day at the farmer’s market and a brunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Ballard — the Austin Cantina. So today I offer a recipe for kiwi sorbet — naughty style:

Ingredients:

6 large kiwis (green or gold — doesn’t matter), peeled and cored, then pureed in a food processor. This will yield about 2 cups of kiwi puree.

1/2 cup simple syrup

3 TBS lemon juice

3 TBS vodka

1/4 cup cold water

1/2 TSP dry gelatin

a pinch of salt (optional)

1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small cup and let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.

2. Bring the syrup to a simmer in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the gelatin, stirring until it is completely dissolved. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the kiwi puree, lemon juice, vodka, and salt (if used) and stir to dissolve the salt. Let cool.

3. Pour the sorbet base into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until ready to serve.

Matt C. and I have a Cuisinart ice cream maker:

We found that it takes about 35-45 minutes of running the ice cream maker to get the consistency we like before hardening in the freezer.

I’ll post a photo of the sorbet when it’s done freezing….stay tuned!

 

I was meant for the Northwest

Matt and I are back finally back from a week in the Northeast, visiting his family the Boston area for Independence Day weekend.

Stay tuned for Beantown-themed posts and Boston-style ice cream recipes in the coming weeks.

For now, let me re-acclimatize to my home state for a couple of days.

Thanks for reading!

 

Grilled Keta Salmon with Lemon, Ginger, Sesame, and Tamari

Tonight was our book club meeting to discuss The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I asked the members to bring a dish that embodied what they had learned from the book. We had an organic local-fruit salad, beer brewed only a mile from our house, local wine, homegrown tomatoes, and fresh couscous with foraged mushrooms.

The main entrée was salmon I picked up at the fish market today. I had no idea what I wanted to do with it besides grilling it on my propane grill, so I winged it. Everyone enjoyed it mightily, and so I will share it with you:

Ingredients:

2 fillets of Keta Salmon (this week, a whole keta at Wild Salmon Seafood Market is $3.99/lb.)

Juice of one lemon

Zest of one lemon

A few shakes of granulated garlic

Several shakes of lemon pepper

One small stalk lemongrass, finely chopped

4 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

3 tablespoons fresh peeled and grated ginger

3 tablespoons tamari-style soy sauce

1 tablespoon Mirin (sweet rice cooking wine)

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

coarse salt

Instructions:

Rinse salmon fillets under cold water and pat dry with paper towels. (Try to use fresh salmon, but frozen is okay. Just be sure to defrost completely.) Preheat your grill to a high heat.

On a baking sheet (that will fit your grill!) or a grill pan (like the one pictured here)

place a sheet of aluminum foil over the whole pan/sheet (Trust me on this, clean up will be exponentially easier!). Sprinkle coarse salt over the foil (I use Baleine coarse sea salt, but kosher salt is fine, too) and place the salmon fillets on the sheet, skin side down.

Whisk oil, a pinch of salt, and all ingredients but the sesame seeds in a small bowl. Pour over the salmon fillets, coating every inch of the salmon with the sauce by spreading it with a basting brush (Fred Meyer has a good silicone basting brush for about $2-3 that won’t mold!). Don’t worry if the sauce ends up between the fillets, too. Sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds liberally on each fillet as a sparse crust.

Place the baking or grilling sheet on the grill and close the lid. Let it cook for 15-20 minutes on high. The sauce will caramelize on the foil. Test the salmon with a fork by inserting it in a thick area and pushing the flesh to one side so you can see inside. The salmon should be light pink and no water should collect in the gap in the flesh when it is done.

This recipe will produce a tasty, not too fishy flavor that will compliment rice or couscous well. Let me know how it works for you!

Dessert (ginger cookies with lemon icing and lavender ice cream) awaits….

 

Eat your vegetables

Last night, in celebration of my boyfriend Matt C. getting his bonus at work, we decided to go out for a slightly frou frou dinner. We walked from our house in Phinney Ridge (near the zoo) to the bank in Greenwood, near the Space Travel Supply Store on 85th (check it out! I built the interactive exhibit there!). We had tried to get reservations at The Stumbling Goat, where my friend Dan O. is a cook, but they were closed for a private party.

Next on the list was the 74th Street Ale House, but when we arrived there were no tables and the wait staff ignored us for 10 minutes, so we left. Although Oliver’s Twist was close and extremely good, Matt was in the mood for a full dinner instead of small plates, so we squeezed into Carmelita, which is on Greenwood Ave between 73rd and 74th Streets.

We’d forgotten how much we liked this place. Carmelita is completely vegetarian, with a few vegan dishes mixed in. They have a rotating, seasonal menu that takes advantage of the peak of featured vegetable growing seasons, and complex flavors dazzle the palate without overwhelming it. In January, I had a chickpea crepe with roasted root vegetables, while Matt had potato and winter squash in a spiced apple gravy. The food was fabulous, too filling for dessert. We vowed to come back after we got settled into our new house just down the hill, but we hadn’t been back yet. It did not disappoint.

Carmelita’s deck seating…

Last night I ordered the mascarpone-polenta torte, with grilled summer vegetables, fresh mozzarella, mascarpone sauce, tomato butter, and an herb salad. It was $18 worth of truly wonderful flavors, delightful colors, and interesting textures. I thought I had made the best choice until I tasted Matt’s entrée: baked Roman-style gnocchi, with lemon cream sauce, rapini, pearl onion, pine nuts, and blueberry sauce. The layers of flavors were impeccable — the pine nuts and not-so-sweet blueberry sauce perfectly balanced the rich potato gnocchi and cream sauce.

We also ordered desserts: I had the Duo of Ice Cream Sandwiches (blackberry-mascarpone ice cream in a pistachio-orange cookie; lemon curd ice cream in a ginger-pine nut cookie), and Matt had the vegan Chocolate Mousse-Caramelized Banana Tart with peanut brittle. Both were incredible, well-portioned, and completely satisfying.

Chef Ande Janousek is a genius. She’s created dishes that will tantalize the senses, all for under $20 a piece. The same dishes with meat would be at least $5 more, and they wouldn’t leave you feeling as clean and satisfied — they’d leave you feeling sluggish and full. The restaurant also encourages the Slow Food ideal of savoring the food over wine with friends and conversation — we never felt rushed, nor was the staff inattentive.

We’ll definitely be walking up there more often….we wanted everything on the menu, which just doesn’t happen with much frequency. I’m not a vegetarian, and probably won’t become one, but this place still has my mouth watering in a Pavlovian way every time I hear the name Carmelita.

I can’t wait for August’s menu, with heirloom tomatoes and sweet corn!

Insider’s Tip: Wednesdays are Wine Wednesdays: bottles of wine are 1/2 price. We got the Chinook ‘06 Semillon, and it was a perfect compliment to the food and the nice weather out on the deck.

 

Patience is a virtue

Still working on uploading the recipes and photos of finished Slow Food!

I’ll update this weekend, I promise!

 

More gourmet ice cream…

This time, it comes from renowned chef Holly Smith, of Cafe Juanita: http://www.pococarretto.com/

I don’t think I need to say much more….just check out those flavors(click the blue box for a bigger view of the menu)! Lillet Blanc sorbetto….sounds like a summertime dream! I’m going to check them out in Fremont this weekend!

UPDATE: Matt and I picked up a pint of the rhubarb/vanilla at Queen Anne’s Eat Local shop.  While it was tasty, it didn’t come close to Empire Ice Cream’s version.  It was also $13 per pint, which we discovered after gawking at the receipt on the way out of the store.

It’s good, but not good enough to buy again.  If I’m tempted by the flavors, I’ll just make my own.