Mary came by, and her friend Camille, so I threw something together based on what we had in the fridge. Thus more grilled chicken, with a similar molasses/tamarind/cider vinegar based sauce, and polenta with parmesan, lemon thyme, and truffle salt, and grilled summer squash and onion. We began with De Meric Champagne, which had a strange Sherry/almost corked thing going on, so we moved on to a 2004 Wagner Stempel Riesling which was very nice,…
cookblog Posts
A hot, sweaty day, so rich comfort food was required, all done outside to keep the house cool. Huge organic chicken legs & thighs got a quick salt/pepper/cumin/chile rub, and went on the grill along with rounds of acorn squash tossed in oil, salt, and pepper. I made a BBQ sauce from molasses, cider vinegar, tamarind, ketchup, sambal oelek, chile powder, maple syrup, ponzu, and pepper, and liberally basted the chicken with it throughout. The…
Soba tossed in tahini, cider vinegar (out of lemons), nama shoyu, nam pla, grated ginger and garlic, pepper, chopped mint and chives, lemon thyme, and olive and sesame oils to coat, then a pan full of sautéed garlic scapes to finish. This was lunch, so we just had a splash each of the Beringer Chard (’02 Sbragia) left over from the night before.
Christine made a pot of brown rice, and procured a jalapeño in anticipation of another leftovers festival. Onion and cumin seeds browned in the big pan, then garlic, then remaining kidney beans from Milo’s dinner, plus a can of pinto beans. Cider vinegar and the garlic scapes from last night finished it off, and it thickened while I made a salsa of grape tomatoes, red onion, jalapeño, scallion, olive oil, and rice vinegar. So the…
I worked my last shift at the Coop today, and I’ll miss shopping there. The garlic scapes are in, so I bought a big bunch (they’re the new ramps, don’t you know) along with some flatiron steaks, red bell peppers, and all the other things we needed. So for today, the 4th of July, in addition to updating this neglected blog, I dutifully fired up the grill and got busy. First, when I got home,…
Sort of a combination of things we’ve been eating recently; the rest of the brats needed eating, and polenta is really working right now in the hot weather. So more herb polenta, grilled brats, and a head of Boston lettuce tossed with grated carrot, scallion, and some of Jo’s bottled ginger dressing which you get in on your salad in almost every sushi joint in town (for a reason- it’s yummy, and sometimes there’s a…
We had some leftover tofu, and a few different veggies (peas, carrots, spinach, zucchini) in need of cooking, so they all went in the big pan along with a lot of quartered new potatoes, onion, water, curry pastes and powders, salt, basil leaves and coconut milk. It all simmered until the potatoes were just tender. Finished with a few scallions and cilantro. No prizes for guessing what we drank.
Raffetto’s on Houston makes fantastic fresh pasta, and their saffron is one of my favorites. So I got fettucine, and then some fresh scallops and squid on the way home. Seared the seafood, then threw in onion, garlic, and herbs, then deglazed with wine, followed by a whipped mixture of greek yogurt and avocado. Let bubble for a minute, then tossed the pasta to coat and stirred back in the seafood and their juices. Finished…
The rest of the uncooked saffron pasta got a simple sauce made from a bratwurst, onion, garlic, herbs, and a can of tomatoes. Simple, but pretty deep; I cooked the sauce for a while to deepen the flavors and thicken it up, and the sausage and onion had caramelized really well. I love the creamy richness of the fresh pasta, and saffron has such a wonderful perfume which melded nicely with the sausage flavor. To…
Kind of a lighter take on fried chicken, grits, and greens: pan-roasted chicken, rubbed with herbs, went on polenta laced with more herbs, parmesan, and pepper, and a pile of purple kale blanched and tossed with lemon, olive oil, and ponzu. Really simple, and just right on a hot day with a chilled Sinskey vin gris (100% Pinot Noir.)