A pound of ground turkey, kidney beans, canned tomatoes and paste, and a panoply of herbs and spices simmered long and low to become a welcome treat after a busy day. A bit of smoked duck fat helped give it depth, and extra garlic made up for the lack of onion. I also splashed a little cider vinegar in to balance the acidity. There was a glass of the Orion left, now five days open,…
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Everyone is a bit under the weather, so I took the bones from both the lamb chops and the smoked chicken and made a broth with leeks and carrots. After a couple of hours, strained, and with the addition of the trimmings from the ravioli, plus a few ravioli, as well as kidney beans, carrots, half a can of tomatoes, and the rest of the puréed vegetable soup, it became a perfect meal for tired,…
After smoking the trout on Sunday, the fire still had plenty of life left in it, so I threw on some chicken legs for the next day. We had them for lunch, chopped and tossed with homemade mayonnaise, onion, capers, and parsley to make a salad. The leftover risotto became little fried cakes, and we put the chicken salad on the last of the radicchio leaves. Dinner was simpler than the night before, but still…
Rick and Julie (and little Holden) are staying for a couple of nights, so we celebrated in fine style. First, more soup, from more or less the same mixture of vegetables as before. We opened a 1998 Bonneau du Martray Corton-Charlemagne to go with this, and with the next course, little flans of smoked trout. They were actually halfway between flans and souflées, since they puffed up a fair amount. With these went a marinated…
Sometimes you just need to go back to the archetypes of comfort food- the touchstones of taste- because you’re tired and the seasons are changing, and darn it, there’s a pound of bork (beef and pork) from Fleisher’s in the fridge. Thus did the following become dinner: spaghetti with a slow-cooked meat sauce involving tomato paste, onion, herbs, garlic, wine and several hours. On the side, fresh arugula tossed with the leftover chard and radicchio…
Chris and Sirkka came over with an amazing basket of treats from their garden: and we made them into a great dinner. Micro was also in town, luckily, and it was a perfect evening. First, the rest of the puréed soup from before, enhanced with a bit of truffle oil and wild mint from the meadow. Next, seared sashimi of marlin, marinated with umeboshi paste, miso, and honey, which I threw in the pan after…
Kale pesto has become the go-to way for getting copious greens into Milo; he loves it on pasta (and cauliflower,) and he also loved the two ways we had it: on pizza with goat cheese and in a puréed soup that included more cauliflower, carrot, celery root, onion, and parsley. We had all this green goodness with a 2003 d’Arenberg “Laughing Magpie” shiraz/viognier which, though not as friendly as the 2002, is a mighty wine…
Needing something clean and healthy, I fell back on maki, always a good way to use up small amounts of leftovers in a healthy way. So the remaining brown rice became rolls around two different fillings: the first, roasted carnival squash puréed with a bit of umeboshi paste and shaken with sesame seeds, and the second kale pesto with fresh arugula leaves in the middle. As an appetizer, 2/3 of a block of tofu browned…
I was talking to the plumber and discussing variations in sauce recipes from family to family; once he left I knew what needed making for dinner. So a bit of bacon and half an onion browned, then a ton of fresh herbs, garlic, a splash of wine, and a can of tomatoes all simmered while I heated up a big pot of water for pasta. The fettucine tossed in with the sauce just before it…
Roasted butternut squash, stick-blended into the rest of the smoked duck broth, became the first course in another fridge-clearing dinner. The caramelized squash and the smoky broth combined beautifully, and the natural affinity duck has with sweet vegetables really made this one special. The main course was brown rice, pinto beans cooked with onion, cumin, lemon, chile powder, and the smoked fat from the top of the broth, and a salsa of corn, radish, and…