Mid-week report

I last told you about the dinner menu for the week. Thought I'd give you a progress report on all of it so far.

Sunday night was chicken piccata, one of Steve's favorites. I couldn't remember where I found the recipe when I made it last time, so I used the one from the Bon Appetit Easy, Fast, Fresh cookbook. If my memory accurately remembers the first recipe, then I would say I preferred the one I made Sunday night. I thought it was very simple and the sauce was excellent. It included fresh shallots, which I love, and just the right amount of lemon and capers. I did make a note to double the sauce for next time, though, because Steve "likes it saucy." The chicken was slightly overcooked but not too bad. No picture.

Monday night was more chicken but in a completely format. I have made this panko crusted chicken schnitzel before and we both really liked it. The last time I made it, I also included a lemon, caper, butter sauce and we ate it over pasta. This time, Steve wanted just the chicken part so we made sandwiches out of it. Think Chick Fil-A only better. The chicken was cooked perfectly - nice and crispy on the outside, juicy & tender on the inside - and we paired it with freshly baked brioche buns from one of the several local Italian bakeries in the area. Topped with some may and dill pickle slices. Yum. No picture.

On Monday afternoon, I made a fresh vinaigrette for the green salad we had on the side. Cook's Illustrated Sept/Oct issue has a "foolproof" vinaigrette recipe and variations. Well, foolproof obviously doesn't apply to me. I'm making up the dressing and just plopped in the oil. As soon as I did it, I knew how dumb that was. The whole point of the dressing is to make a nice emulsion, which requires that the oil be whisked in slowly. Duh. Poured this made-wrong-but-still-perfectly-edible batch of dressing into a container and put in fridge. Attempt number two went perfectly and even hours later when we used the dressing, it hadn't separated at all. The dressing I made incorrectly had separated into obvious layers. No picture.

Also on Monday afternoon, I made the Dutch Baby that I saw in the July issue of Food & Wine. (I don't normally buy or read F&W, but I bought it at the airport on my way to ALA. I used to buy Bon Appetit for airplane reading, but as I now have a subscription, I had to get a different food mag.) Dutch Baby was new to me and it sounded tasty and easy to make. The recipe said that Dutch Baby is also known as a German Pancake, which still didn't make it any more familiar to me. Here is the link to the recipe I used. The picture accompanying the recipe led me to believe that this would be a puffy, light breakfast/dessert food. Hmmm. I must have done something wrong because mine looked nothing like the picture. Here is what is should have looked like:


Mine turned out to be sort of right looking. The sides of my Dutch Baby stood up and were nice and puffy. The middle however, was another story. The middle never rose or puffed, and looked like I had offended it somehow. The middle had a dense custard-pudding consistency that sat in the tummy like lead. I also only used blueberries, so mine didn't have the cheery, colorful mix of berries that was recommended. I bought raspberries to use but when I opened them - only ONE DAY after I bought them - they already had a nice growth of black fuzzy mold. (I think they must have been purchased that way and I just didn't check them carefully enough.) Don't get me wrong, the whole thing tasted just fine, but it just wasn't pretty to look at and since I've never had a Dutch Baby, I wasn't sure if the consistency was right. I have poked around online to look at other recipes and photos and actually mine might have been right. Several sites describe it as being fluffy, but others say it has a more of a Yorkshire pudding consistency. Who knows. I'd like to try it again because I may have also made a crucial mistake. The recipe said to use a 10-inch CAST IRON skillet. Of course, I had read that, but when I went to prep a pan, I for some reason grabbed the All-Clad 10-inch skillet. I have no idea why. Between the pan mistake and the vinaigrette emulsion mistake, my head was clearly not in the kitchen on Monday afternoon. The cast iron shape and material might really make a difference, so I'd try this again using the correct pan. When I served this to Steve, he wasn't terribly enthused, but I dolloped on a huge amount of fresh whipped cream and he ate it. It isn't one of our favorite desserts, but it will do until I make something else. No picture of this possible mistake.

Tuesday night was pork tenderloin with pineapple, lime, and chile glaze. This took a little longer than I anticipated to make, but it was pretty good. The recipe asks for TWO pork tenderloins to make FOUR servings. I didn't think this was necessary so we only used one, fairly large, tenderloin. The recipe also calls for red jalapenos. Well, I forgot to look at the produce stand on Sunday for these, and our corner grocery store only sells green jalapenos in pre-weighed sealed packages. I would have happily substituted green ones for red if I could have bought just a couple loose. I didn't need a dozen jalapenos for the two tablespoons required. So we improvised with green Tabasco sauce, chili powder, and a can of green chiles. I don't think the end result was as spicy as it should have been, but it was wonderfully sweet with all that pineapple juice. The pork cooked up p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y. We ate slices of pork over white rice drizzled with more of the glaze. Green salad on the side with the dressing I didn't make correctly the day before. I didn't want to buy a six-pack of pineapple juice, or a large 32 ounce container, so I bought two cans of pineapple chunks in juice and used the juice from those to get my cup for the glaze. We ate pineapple for dessert and probably tonight and tomorrow. There is a lot of pineapple in two cans. No picture, do you get the pattern yet?

Tonight, I'm going to make the sweet corn soup. I was supposed to make the gnocci, but I have to first make the ricotta, which I will do today. The ricotta has to drain out in the fridge overnight.

More tales to tell.

Going to be a homemade week

This morning, Steve and I put together our dinner menu for the week. With the exception of breads, I'm going to make everything from scratch. For instance, one night we are going to have ricotta gnocci. I'm going to make the ricotta with which to make the gnocci. Ricotta appears to be extremely simple to make, so why not try it at least once? Other first attempts will be made, including a Dutch Baby (aka German pancake) with berries. Cook's Illustrated also has a recipe in their Sept/Oct issue for a skillet lemon souffle, which I would really like to try, but I've had my eye on this Dutch Baby recipe longer so it will be made first.

We will grill at least one night this week - flank steak with egg salad and Romaine salad with vinaigrette. Homemade vinaigrette. I'm going to try several vinaigrette variations this week for our salads.

Pineapple and lime glazed pork loin, panko crusted chicken schnitzel, sweet corn soup, and chicken piccata round out the week. Actually, the piccata is tonight. Everything is going to be with green salads or other veggies. Pears, berries, and pineapple will also be on hand.

I'll keep you posted on how everything turns out and will try to have pictures, but you know how I am with pictures.

The weekend was full of food

Father's Day weekend here was a non-affair. As neither of us were able to travel to visit dad's, we took ourselves out for Father's Day brunch. We have a favorite coffee shop over on Court Street that makes quite excellent pancakes, with or without blueberries. It's called Cobble Hill Coffee Shop. That's kinda a no-brainer name, I know, but it suits it just fine.

The coffee shop decorates for the holidays and seasons. This past Sunday, they added blue banners hanging up on the walls proclaiming Happy Father's Day to all the dads who came in. The banners were up next to their spring "decor" of hanging paper/plastic flowers.

It's a real local joint. It's small and run, and I suspect owned, by two neighborhood guys named Frank and Nick. I have no idea which old guy is Frank and which is Nick, and I don't know their last names. The business card by the old fashioned, non-digital cash register simply has their first names. I think they are Greek as they and many of the older, life-time waiters have accents. Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens has been a traditionally Italian neighborhood, but I don't think these guys are Italian. The place is always busy and full of all kinds of people - oldsters, young families, singles at the counter, and everyone in between. So far, we've only been there for breakfast on the weekends. They have a machine that squeezes oranges for fresh squeezed oj, a tiny griddle area, hand written tickets, large menu, and freezing cold air conditioning.

It's not a fancy place by any means and it doesn't try to be something it's not. I like it because it's a real neighborhood coffee shop that makes good comfort food, has a friendly staff (they don't recognize us yet even though we have been there three Sundays in a row), and isn't too expensive. In fact, if you get there before 11AM, there are really good prices on breakfast specials which include coffee and a small juice. No mimosas here!

The man who greets customers I assume is Frank/Nick. We had to wait a few minutes for a table twice now, and he keeps track in his head who is next and how many people in the party. There is no room to wait inside, so everyone just stays outside on the sidewalk. Besides, Frank/Nick won't let you wait inside. He will bring out chairs so people can sit. People leave their expensive Bugaboo and Maclaren strollers outside, too. (Side note: you know how in LA BMWs and Mercedes are everywhere? Yeah, that's what Bugaboos and Maclarens are like in my neighborhood. I have yet to see another brand of stroller.) He pokes his head out to give updates on tables and to call people in to sit. It's a system that he's probably been doing for a long time.

So that's what we did Sunday morning. We left the diner and went straight to Trader Joe's because we've figured out that before noon on Sunday, it's actually pretty decent in there. The shelves are stocked and it's not busy yet with the check out line wrapping along the back of the store from dairy to produce. We did run into one snag - their meat case was out of order so there was no sausage, beef, or pork available. I asked the cashier what was going on and she said it wasn't keeping things cold at the proper temp so it was being fixed. The repair guys were there and we saw them doing repair guys things to the huge meat case. If you were looking for chicken you were in luck as that case is separate and was operating just fine.

After that, we did some produce shopping across the street at Pacific Green. Picked up fresh tarragon, apples for Steve, garlic, onions, strawberries, and Camembert for a recipe later this week.

Last week, I sat down with back issues of Bon Appetit and marked recipes that sound good but we haven't tried yet. This week's dinner menu is going to be entirely from Bon Appetit issues. Except for the grilled pizza night, which should be Friday. That pizza will be my own creation, but I am borrowing the excellent pizza dough recipe found in a previous issue of, you guessed it, Bon Appetit.

Monday night, I made a pasta with goat cheese, asparagus, tarragon, and lemon. It was so easy, light, tasty, and easily adaptable. If you make it, be sure to add salt and pepper because for some reason, this recipe doesn't include them. And it needs both salt and pepper.

Going back one more night to Sunday, I made Moroccan chicken which had ingredients of green olives, lemons, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, caramelized onions, and garlic. I used just chicken breasts instead of butchering a whole chicken. Quite good, especially the bites with the olives. I wrote on the recipe to add more olives next time.

Tonight, I think dinner will be steak sandwiches, salad, and pineapple. (The Camembert I got will go on these sandwiches.)

If you haven't seen Laura's, of Pinot and Prose, new blog for Edible Queens, be sure it check it out. She's writing a blog for EQ exclusively covering her experiences during culinary school at the Institute for Culinary Education (ICE). She just started the program, so if you start reading the blog, you don't have to go back too far to get caught up.

Dinner menu for the week

I received my first issue of Bon Appetit this month (March). It was a Christmas present from Steve's parents. I poured over it yesterday, and it had features on three of my favorite foods - cheese, potatoes, and caramel! There are so many delicious recipes crammed into this issue that it's hard to choose what to make first. I find that recipes are like books - there are so many good ones that I'll never get to all of them.

But I've made a few choices, and put together the menu for the week provided that I am able to get all the fresh ingredients I need:

Sunday - braised beef short ribs in beer
Monday - Winter squash and apple bisque (vegetarian)
Tuesday - Beef pasties with caramelized onions and Stilton cheese
Wednesday - Pizza with Fontina, potatoes, and tapenade (vegetarian)
Thursday - left overs
Friday - Potato-wrapped halibut with sauteed spinach
Saturday - eat out, whew!

I haven't decided what sides will accompany each dish (except for Friday) yet. The braised short ribs and the bisque are from William-Sonoma's Soup & Stew cookbook, and all others are in the March BA issue.

We are going to go out in a little bit to get our short ribs and other ingredients for tonight and tomorrow. I'll do the rest of the shopping on Tuesday when it's not as hectic and crowded. This menu will also require visits to the local butcher and fish market, both of which I love going to. (Except the butcher shop has that raw meat, bloody smell which I don't really like.) After I wrote the menu and really looked at it, I realized that almost every dish this week has potatoes in it or can be nicely accompanied by mashed potatoes or potato gratin. Did I mention that I love potatoes? Yukon golds especially.

Speaking of potatoes, for St. Patrick's Day, I already know I'm going to make caraway soda bread (Amanda's recipe) and potato & leek based Colcannon soup. The last time I had both the soda bread and soup was at Harcourt during our children's marketing hosted St. Pat's pot-luck-O'the-Irish lunch. Children's marketing could be depended on to host/organize holiday events for the company. Sigh.

Therefor, I didn't want to make a potato based soup this week, even though it would have completed the theme of the week. We also have an Irish pub right around the corner from us, Ceol, and I suspect we may pop in the week of St. Pat's for some bangers & mash or Shephard's pie and a pint of Guinness.