Peas Pass the Fish

Saw Eric Ripert cook a quick paella on television. Made my own version. Ate it. Loved it. Recommend you try it. Peace!

Veggie Dinner

What do you do when you're drowning in organic produce and can't cook fast enough to use it before it spoils? My solution was to make veggie broth followed by a three-course vegetarian dinner. Still adjusting to the time change and battling off a cold and the freakin' rain storm, inside cooking all day Saturday was just what I needed. Whatever peace and tranquility I harvested from cooking all day was surely usurped by Sunday's activities. I love my brother, Brian, and am so proud of him for running the L.A. marathon in one of the worst storms I have ever seen in Southern California, but if he pulls this again next year he can take a frigin' taxi home! Just playing. Fighting the chaotic rain-drenched crowd in Santa Monica at the finishing line was kind of fun and I was compensated with Umami burger so no complaining on my part.

The Pastrami Burger

Okay back to the VEGGIE dinner. The first thing that I did was make an unconventional veggie broth from onion, carrot, parsnip, celery, shallot, cauliflower, and bay leaf. The parsnips and cauliflower gave it a subtle sweetness that I wanted to use to cook risotto with. After about 5 hours of simmering I had a rich golden broth.

Sometimes Boz tries to help but when I let him handle the food this type of thing always happens.

Then he says somthing like, "cooking is tiring, gonna cuddle mommy; peace out beatch."

Mission: Fill the dishes shown below

Purpose: Distract myself from the incessant rain and my cold

Outcome: 

     First: Shitake Miso Soup

     Second: Warm Potato Pave and Mixed Wild Green Salad with Barolo Vinaigrette

     Third: Spicy Fig Glazed Tofu Steak on Mushroom Risotto

For the miso soup I didn't stray too far from tradition. I had some frozed dashi that I made awhile back. Combined it with white miso paste (I would have put in some red paste too but I was out). Paper thin shitake, green onion, and tofu.

The next course was inspired by a potato pave in Thomas Keller's, Ad Hoc, cookbook. After slicing peeled golden potatoes, I soaked them in cream and layered them in a loaf pan. Every two layers or so got some butter and salt. The parchment lining in the pan served as a cover and aided in steaming the potatoes, it also helped to extract them after two hours at 350 in the oven.

A quick sear in some canola oil yielded these gorgeous puppies; yes they were as good as they looked. The greens were fava bean greens, arugula, and pea shoots and leaves. The vinaigrette was made from one of my favorite vinegars, Barolo Vinegar, shallots, canola oil, and S & P.

The risotto was okay but perhaps a little under-seasoned. I wanted to let the veggie broth shine through and was lighter on the seasoning than usual. The risotto had butter-browned shitake mushrooms, cream, Parmesan cheese, and a little S & P.

I wanted to try to sous-vide something but should have taken my maiden voyage with meat. The firm tofu I used did not change much in texture. The method is said to transform the connective tissue in meat into a beautiful tender consistency and tofu is already that so all it did was infuse the marinade, which is a lot really. After heating through the tofu were moved to underneath the broiler and allowed to brown. After a quick brush with a fig and chili soy glaze they went to sleep on a fluffy bed of risotto before they were violently awaken by the chomping of teeth and the shredding and the ripping... Damn, not sure where that came from; let's carry on.

Thanks for reading.

Flour and Water

Where to start? It's been a long day and as I watch the Oscars my back throbs slightly from over-exertion in exercise and chores. We've been busy every weekend for the last month so the plan-less weekend was a welcome respite. Did I take it easy and recharge? The answer is no. Amidst the errands, groceries, trip to medical lab for glucose test for Shelese, chopping, prepping, and cooking... I'm tired! As I reflect on my weekend activities I realize my fatigue and long for another day to the weekend. Despite sore muscles and heavy eyelids I find myself in a culinary whirlwind on this crisp and sunny Sunday; not because I have to but because I love to. About a month ago I ordered Ideas in Food, which explains why their recipes taste as good as they do. I'm on the chapter that celebrates the result of mixing flour and water. Let's all bow our heads in a moment of appreciation of the glory which is ground wheat and water. Seriously! How many people across the world subsist on a simple mixture of flour and water and other ingredients? I'd venture to say without researching it that most of us do. Let us also appreciate this simple fact: few things are as soul satisfying as eating fresh-baked anything. Fueled by the aforementioned literature and the items in our fridge that needed to be consumed, I got to work. We had smoked gouda and English Cheddar that would spoil soon, fresh organic baby artichokes from this weeks Abundant Harvest box, and recently roasted roma tomatoes and thyme. We had about eight baby artichokes so I cleaned them and soaked them in lemon ice water.

I mixed together a simple flatbread from Ideas in Food and started them rising and resting. There is nothing more than flour, water, olive oil, and salt in the dough.

After ample rising the dough was rolled out and stuffed with shredded gouda and cheddar. Placed on lightly oiled parchment on the underside of a baking sheet and baked about 15 minutes at 500 degrees. The flatbread was brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse sea salt and pepper.

Started to saute the artichokes in olive oil until browned slightly and added in shallots, garlic, and onion. Once the aromatics softened I threw in the slow roasted tomatoes I made yesterday. Splash of vermouth, reduced, then added water and S & P.

Homemade pappardelle made with many egg yolks is always the way to go when you're eating fresh and simple ingredients. I would get into the details of how I made the noodles but I'm simply being lazy. The recipe came from the same Ideas in Food book. One thing I would do differently is to go a little thinner. I think I took half of them to one notch thinner on the noodle roller. Some where so silky and practically melted in our mouths; the other, well, they where different... but not much.

The noodle only saw boiling water for about two minutes before being added to the sauce with about a half cup of the noodle cooking water and sauted for about three minutes.

We started with a simple salad with onion, dried cranberries, feta, topped with S & P, a nice olive oil, and aged thick Modena vinegar.