Friday, December 29, 2006

New Year's Resolution

I've never (I don't think) made a New Year's resolution, but I'm going to try one this year. For the entire month of January, I'm going to cook old recipes...I'm talking the old(!) ones. Dishes that our family has loved forever - starting out with the most favorite of family dinners for New Year's day -

Roasted Ham with Maple Syrup/O.J. baste
Mom's Macaroni and Cheese
Monkey Bread
Pink Salad
I'll have to look for a dessert - I want something that will be gone in one sitting - no leftovers!!!

And I'll go from there - one I'm really looking forward to is Cold Oil Chicken..will have to buy an electric skillet. so many....

Beerox (which I have just recently learned is spelled 'bierox')
Braised Beef w/mushrooms & barley
Tuna-Noodle Casserole
Choo Choo Train Rice
Zucchini & Pimento Casserole - (when first found this recipe Jackie and I made this three nites in a row)

There are so many! This is going to be fun.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Pictures of Recent Dishes




Well since I can't figure out how to add pictures to an original post, I shall try it here...


This first one is of the Duck salad made the second time withing three days using the leftover Duck Breasts from the Grilled Duck with Risotto dish. It's kind of a clean the frig salad topped with beautiful duck slices.
O.K., edit time - the first picture is of the Soft Shell Tacos that Alix from DiscussCooking forum posted. What a great idea this is and it must be better for us than regular tortillas - especially since I adore flour over corn...

Soft Taco Shells
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
1 cup flour (may need up to 1-1/4 cups)
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 pinch salt
Whisk egg in the milk, add the flour and stir til well blended. Add in the cornmeal and stir til evenly distributed. This should be quite runny, don't be afraid to add more milk as needed.

Pour about 1/4 - 1/3 cup batter in very hot, oiled frying pan and rotate pan to coat the bottom with the batter. When the top starts to look dry all over its time to flip. Repeat until you've used all the batter.
This amount usually feeds 4 family members or 2 ravenous adults.
Alix, Discuss Cooking posted on 11/28/06
It makes 12 six inch shells.
Its like a thick crepe, so when you are making them keep that particular texture in mind. I make mine in my 6 inch frying pan as I don't have a crepe pan. I have tried them in my 10 inch frying pan and they work well there too. We just prefer them smaller as they can be a touch messy. LOL.
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TACOS WITH SOFT TACO SHELLS
Made tacos (old family style - lettuce, tomato, olives, cheese & onions) using your soft taco shell recipe. What a treat they were - there were three left after stuffing ourselves and my husband ate those also sprinkled with just a little salt.

I'll just add what I did with the chicken for filliing - it turned out quite nice also -
I tossed together 2 chicken breasts, raw and cut up bite-size with:
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. grd. cumin
1/8 tsp. each - garlic powder and cayenne

Brown the chicken in just a tad of oil; remove from skillet and keep warm.

To the pan, add one (14 1/2oz.) can of diced tomatoes, 1 jalapeno minced up (seeds and membrane included), 1 T. golden Tequila and cook that down a little, about 15 min.

Add the chicken back to the pan along with a cornstarch/water slurry to thicken it up a bit for the taco shells.

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Will make these little goodies often!!


Sunday, December 10, 2006

Duck, Beautiful Duck!

(must warn those from C@H to please not read the following, if you have meandered over here before the 18th of December)

My Duck tale begins with daughter Tracie and her friend Susan wanting to join us in the "Dinner Party" menu - we'd all decided to do a duck dinner and since her Dad & I were visiting and exchanging early Christmas presents, she decided Mom should help her get the duck. Because we didn't find the required duck breasts, we bot a whole duck and I cut the breasts off, wrapped and froze them for her dinner party. And for my 'hard' work, Trace sent the rest of the duck home with me - not a bad trade on my part.

Fast forward to getting home. I cooked the rest of the duck in a beer braise, removed the meat (yummy tasting, by the way) and started searching for what to do with the hind-quarters of duck meat. I settled on a Bon Appetit recipe - Duck Salad with Cheese Toasts and Port Currant Sauce.

I had enuf of the duck meat for two nice pkgs. so for this salad I only needed one of the pkgs. The salad is tossed with a very simple Walnut oil and Champagne vinaigrette (kept the salad simple, just gorgeous greens and a few green onions) and place on plate. For the cheese toasts - the recipe called for "Pont l'Eveque Cheese and a qood-quality fruit-and-nut bread (such as walnut-raisin), toasted." I had neither, but did have some Brie and dragged the bread machine out and made dough in it for Fruited Snack Bread -


Fruited Snack Bread
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup snipped apricots
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package Fleischmann's® Rapid Rise Yeast
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
Confectioners' sugar

In large bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups flour, raisins, apricots, nuts, sugar, salt and undissolved yeast. Heat milk, water and butter until very warm (125º to 130ºF); stir into dry ingredients. Mix in enough reserved flour to make stiff dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and
elastic, about 5 minutes. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.

Roll dough to 10- × 15-inch rectangle or to 12-inch circle. Place on greased baking sheet or pizza pan. Bake at 400ºF for 20 minutes or until done. Remove from pan and cook on wire rack. Makes 1 (10- × 15-inch) focaccia. Top with sifted confectioners' sugar. Cut into strips, squares or wedges. Top with whipped cream cheese or creamy peanut butter, if desired.
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Didn't do all of the above - just dumped all the ingredients (3 cups flour) in the machine, made dough, removed and made into just a loaf style bread and baked that up - no powdered sugar or other goodies.

So, for the salad, I toasted two slices, cut them diagonally and while still hot, layed thin strips of Brie on the toast and added them to the salad.
Topped this with pieces of duck meat and sprinkled toasted walnuts over.
Somehow the day got away from me and I didn't get the Port-Currant Sauce made, but I did have some Apple Cider Reduction handy so drizzled that over the salad.

Anyone out there who wants an absolute treat - I hope everyone will try this salad. The 'cheese toast' (such a bland name for such a wonderful garnish) - is absolutely fantastic. And like the chicken roulades with tomato concasse of a few months ago - you need to get a little of everything in the salad to experience the wonderfulness of it!! It is truly orgasmic!

Now, I must keep in mind that this dish was supposed to be kind of a 'throw away' dish to use the unexpected duck I inherited! The real Duck Story here is supposed to be "Pan-Seared Duck Breast & Risotto with Wild Rice, Sweet Potatoes and Sage AND Pear-Ginger Chutney" to be reviewed on Dec. 18th!

I called the only store in 20 miles that I thot I had a chance in hell of finding duck breasts and they did come thru. The butcher said he had three pkgs. in the freezer and I asked him to keep them for me - he didn't know what he had, because he kept saying they were pkgs. of one duck breast - which I assumed meant the entire breast, but he talked like the pkgs. held one half-breast. Got to the store and he has found another pkg., so I grabbed all four pkgs. (~ $13.00 per pkg.) - and because I don't know when I'll be able to get more, blew the week's grocery money and was grinning ear to ear while doing it.

Thawed out one pkg. and lo and behold, it contained 4 (FOUR) half-breasts, each a gorgeous size, about what I had removed from Tracie's duck and had spent ~$14.00 for (well she did). And to think I have three more pkgs. in the freezer!!

The Pear-Ginger Chutney is a wonderful, spicy chutney. I had dried Cranberries so subbed them for the cherries. A great sweet, savory, spicy flavor.

I've never combined wild rice with risotto, much less added sweet potato to the mix, but it is really a nice combination.

AND THE DUCK! I cooked it exactly to the recipe (used a timer and a splatter screen even!!) It was cooked to perfection - just pink in the center and the greatest (I'm so tired of 'wonderful') crispy, tasty skin. I think the pan made all the difference - used a very heavy SST skillet and NO non-stick finish, so I could sear this over the required high heat.

And after the dish is put together, it looks like it could have come out of Bouchon's kitchen (and that's saying something). Then only thing I will do differently next time is fry up some sage leaves for garnish - it needed a little more color. Served dinner with an Abacela winery '03 Estate Tempranillo ( a new wine we have just discovered and absolutely love!) Great match!

Again, this is so repetitive, but to get all the flavors at once...died and gone to heaven! Crispy duck, spicy chutney and the oh so smooth risotto.

This dish gets the second 10 I have every given for our dinners!

P.S. had two halves of the breasts left over (that just sounds wrong!) - so repeated the above salad the next nite!!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

More Musing on Bloggin

I almost feel I should be typing "Dear Diary"...

Still musing over what I shall use this blog business for - thinking maybe since I try so many new recipes (at least 3-5 per week), maybe I'll try to keep track of them - by week?

So, to that end, here's what I cooked since Thanksgiving day - this idea may turn out to be a great way to late find recipes/dishes I'd like to repeat.

11/20/06
Sage Dressing Timbales (original name 'Muffins' - hoakie) - great dish. I added dried cranberries; next time I'll make more like family favorite dressing/stuffing - adding sausage, chopped fresh (or dried?) apples. Also love the idea of 'muffin' shaped dressing that can be frozen in serving size.

11/22/06
Margarita Jello Shooters - Oh My! Denise (defen from C@H forum) got us in real trouble here. Neighbors were in, thank God, to help drink these - and for Roy's descriptive "they're like flavored snot" - he had so many, off to bed he went and was hurting in the a.m. :)

Pumpkin Pie - naturally Libby's - made two to be able to snitch pieces over the next week...(11/29 note: which we did!)

Butternut Squash Fritters with Blue Cheese & Pumpkin Seeds - definate repeat. Nice make ahead appy to be fried at the last minute for serving. Couldn't find pumpkin seeds so subbed toasted pine nuts.

Ribeyes and Fries were on the menu for our anniversary dinner after the neighbors left, but see note on Shooters!

11/23
Scallop Pineapple - made this to take to the neighbors for Thanksgiving dinner - silly a$$ people, only three of us ate this. Neri tried and did like it, but no one else. Started making this when the kids were little and wanted dressing, but didn't like 'adult' dressing, they liked this one.

Southwestern Cranberry Salsa - CrabbyCake's recipe from two or three years ago - love this stuff.

Pumpkin French Toast - from Cornelius Daly Inn, Eureka B&B. This would be a wonderful offering for when company is staying over. It's even decadent.

11/26/06
Roy (Chris' boyfriend) brot us 2 Dungeness crabs this a.m., so I scurried around looking for ideas for using all this wonderful meat. Started out with:
Cranberry Crab Meaat & Cream Cheese Appys - (dollop posted this on C@H forums) - very good, especially using some of the S.W. Cranberry Salsa as topping.

Etta's Classic Dungeness Crab Cakes - from Tom Douglas' Book. Very good flavor, but one of the most delicate cakes I've made - but with no filler at all, the flavor was wonderful, just hard to keep together. Served these as a 'surf & turf' dinner with the steaks from our anniversary that did not get eaten...

The next nite, added the leftover crab cakes to a Cajun Pasta dish that was wonderful!!

11/26
Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Feta and Bacon - June posted this somewhere and one of the dishes I wanted to try for T.day, but just had too much food for that day. One of Roy's favorites and it is really good!

11/28
Lemon Creme Mold - VeraBlue posted this on D.C. forum - Yummy!!! Kept one 'mold' for us and gave three away to neighbors - great feed back. Had some S.W. cranberry salsa left and topped the salad with it - great combination!

Served above with l/o cabbage dish, meat loaf and baked potatoes (wow, haven't had this forever - MEATLOAF SANDWICHES TOMORROW!!

Well now, this will be quite a history of our kitchen...

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

DINNER AT BOUCHON'S

WOW!!!!

O.K., notes in hand, here goes! First note is - "truck parked in 6C" - big damn parking garage at the Venetian...The restaurant is gorgeous and then we started…

Had a look at the menu and our tag team servers told us of the 'specials' (that doesn't seem to go with the place )When we had what we thot we wanted to order, we had the sommelier come over to see if we could match one bottle of wine with all the goodies - and what a wonderful choice he made for us. (June and bbally, I'll list the wine first 'cause that's probably what you two will scroll down to see!)Domaine La Milliere 2003 Vieilles VignesCotes du RhoneCuvee Unique

My first first was when they brot out the 'in house' made rolls with a small bowl of butter, of course, but also a bowl of pistachios...I'd not seen that before, but a great combination!Next we were surprised with an amuse-bouche - a small pastry 'thimble' filled with really sweet crabmeat and topped with a crispy tarragon leaf. What a delightful combination.

Hors d' oeuvre(s) - Confit de Canard (confit with riz rouge-red rice- and sweet peas shoots)Roy's Plats Principaux - Gigot d'AgneauRoasted leg of lamb with garlic braised Swiss chard, rosemary roasted sweet carrots and lamb jus (jus - to die for!!)

O.K, now here I have to digress a tad. For years my father-in-law promised to prepare sweetbreads for me, but for some reason the years passed by and he never did and I've never tried them and then he was gone.When the server mentioned Sweet Breads was a special of the evening, I thot well, if I'm ever going to try them, Bouchon's is the place!!

They were out of this world and I'm just now realizing I could have been eating these for 30 years if....The Sweetbreads were served with Hen of the Woods mushrooms, spring onions, thyme all placed on a very subtle vanilla infused béchamel (?). The 'breads' were lightly floured and sautéed quickly for a wonderful crispy outside and creamy inside. (I just know my f-i-l was looking down, thrilled that I was finally having his favorite!)

We chose to have Fromage with honeycomb to end the meal - we selected three from six offeringsSt. Maure de Touraine (goat cheese)Fourme d'Ambert (cows milk)P'Tit Basque (sheeps milk)and of course the honeycomb served in an apple ring.

I suppose talking of money is bad form, but!! We went in expecting to spend at a minimum of $200 - but with the $50.00 bottle of wine, the total came to $148.00!! Can you believe that? (Hell, we could have ordered the Terrine de Foie Gras de Canard at $45.00/for 5 oz!!)
Speaking of the wine, this bottle saw us thru the entire meal and was wonderful with every flavor!!!

Evidently the 'house' pays attention to the requests of customers to the maitre d'. The sommelier began by saying he understood I was a semi-retired chef and they were delighted to have us with them.Towards the end of our meal, one of the servers came over and said whenever we were ready, the pastry chef was waiting to give us a tour of the kitchen. (many of you know me well enuf by now to now how incredibly excited I am at this point!!!)

We were taken back to the kitchen and met Pastry Chef Chris Heron. What a delightful young man and talented chef he is. He showed us the entire kitchen and we met everyone (no, not Chef Keller) at each of the stations. I spied a sauté pan of sweetbreads on the stove and headed over and the cook took me through exactly how he was preparing them - is that wonderful?? And, he seemed so pleased at how much we enjoyed them.

The line cooks told me I could join them in cooking anytime I was in town...oh my!

And that friends, was my dinner at Bouchon's.P.S. 11/06 – During the planning of our annual C2C fundraiser dinner at Florian’s, Chef Chris Heron was planning on joining us in Flo’s kitchen for this dinner! But, pressures of his job prevented this at the last minute. What a thrill that would have been for all of us!

CIA - GREYSTONE

CIA - G R EYSTO N E
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!I had the absolute pleasure of presenting Christine Schmidt with her Chef2Chef scholarship, yesterday at the CIA, Greystone. Oh my, talk about goosebumps!!That is the most gorgeous setting, building, campus, garden, yadda yadda, I've ever seen. Can you imagine, a citrus garden, an herb garden to kill for - all a student has to do is walk out the door and gather!Christine ...I don't think we could have picked a better student, she is so passionate and dedicated to what she is pursuing and so very grateful for the help from C2C. She can talk a mile a minute with the cutest New Orlean's accent, I was exhausted after a couple of hours of keeping up with her! She is 52 yrs. young (is that legal to tell?) and she says I am her hero, but my God, she is really my hero, she knew what she wanted and she went for it in such a humungous way!I left the place loaded for bear with all the brochures and goodies one of the administrators, Catherine, told me I just had to have because I needed to come back for at least a week's class - which, I will do come hell or high water before I leave California. (as of 11/06 in Washington, I’ve not made it…yet)

For all who have not taken the opportunity to visit one of the CIAs - I hope you will, just think ‘goosebumps and hair standing up’ experience in those rooms. And the Chefs were so welcoming!!Speaking of Chefs, the one bummer, well kind of, FoodDude was at the hospital - the new baby had just arrived, so couldn't see him. But I left a card from all of us for him. He is very well liked there....and how was your day?

Dave, thank you for the opportunity to represent C2C in this way - the CIA was so appreciative of us all who made this possible for a student....

AND FOR LUNCH...We went to Bistro Jeanty in Yountville for lunch ...oh my! There were two of us, so we made sure we ordered different things to be able to taste.I took Janis' advice and ordered the deep fried smelts with spicy lemony aioli - addictive!!I ordered a second hors for my lunch - Rabbit Pate with Celery Root Apple Salad - another winner. (June, Beef Cheeks weren't on the menu or special, darn.)

My friend order the 'special' Asparagus Soup advertised as not the creamy type. When it came it was topped with a wonderful puff pastry and digging right into it, Coleenie found a gorgeous salmon colored cream soup...????? We kept tasting trying to figure out the flavors and where the hell the asparagus was. Finally called our waiter over ...he had made a mistake, she got the 'signature' Tomato Soup in error. But, she wouldn't let it go back, it was so good. (The chef very nicely gave me the recipe - it really is super!!)Then she had the Coq au Vin - I was surprised how strongly flavored the sauce was for the chix, but it worked somehow ...but a little too bacony, I thot.

Split a Lemon Tart for dessert.Overall, a very nice lunch. The hits for me were the Soup and the Smelts!! Loved those little buggers! Janis also mentioned in her post a few weeks ago about stuffing them .... I dunno, they are kinda small to be messin' with like that, but, maybe I'll give it a try.

Then on to the Tourist Traps - THAT was fun! Picked up three different cuts of pasta - the multi-colored stuff. Bow-ties, long, narrow lasagne type strands, and 4"X6" lasagna sheets - pastel yellow, green and pink - now, what sauce with this? I don't want to cover w/a typical red sauce, maybe some kind of white? Hmmm, someone was talking about Stroganoff in another post, that might be good...O. K. that was my Thursday, Apri121, 2005 - now, I'll go pack the trailer....

A DATE WITH MY HUBBY OR THE FOOD IS GREAT IN P.A.

A DATE WITH MY HUBBY OR THE FOOD IS GREAT IN P.A.
We are so lucky in Port Angeles to have the number of wonderful eating spots for such a small town - what a group of foodies we dropped anchor in the midst of!!!Last night finally made it to a little wine bar/restaurant called Bella Italia that we had up till then just stopped in to wine taste.

But last night, dinner!!Roy & I almost always order different entrees so we can taste more, but both of us just went gaga over their description of one of the 'specials' - "Roasted beet and goat cheese ravioli in saffron creme fraiche. Served with seared sea scallops"Oh my, the raviolis were just wonderful and now I just have to recreate these at home. And the scallops seared nicely brown, but just perfectly done and not over cooked.We had a bottle of Walla Walla Vintners, Columbia Valley Sangiovese and what a wonderful match it was.

We took a dessert home with us - a chocolate mousse, can't remember how the waitstaff described it, but when we got home and opened this beautiful gift box, there was a huge bowl-shaped tuile filled with the mousse. It was gorgeous and delicious!!Dessert always seems to taste better when you can curl up in your jammies and eat it while you watch a copied episode of Closure - love that show.We had a wonderful date nite!!!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

My 2nd Blog


We'll see how this works out - not sure what I want to use this for, but everyone else has one...