What's cooking?

[Jenise]

For lunch today I made a dungeness crab ceviche. What I didn't catch or pick out of my own garden came from the Farmer's Market. Even the chips are local.

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For dinner, I'm going to repurpose some of the green chiles we roasted and marinated yesterday into a southwest version of chicken cacciatore that I'll serve on celery-cumin rice. A fennel, gold beet and orange salad will precede the main course.

You're in Reykjavik? Love that town. Good thing you like fish, that's all there is to eat if you don't eat lamb.

Yeah, it's a great place. Although a bit shocking that my 4-day conference stay got turned into an 8-day holiday by Irene. I was not prepared.

The fish is gorgeous, and I hear the meat is great as well (as you know, everything on the island is organic, free range, etc etc). I can just about put up with the lack of fruit and diverse vegetables because it's so beautiful here. So I'm still invigorated by that. But not sure how long I can last!

For lunch today I made a dungeness crab ceviche. What I didn't catch or pick out of my own garden came from the Farmer's Market. Even the chips are local.

IMG_2226.JPG

For dinner, I'm going to repurpose some of the green chiles we roasted and marinated yesterday into a southwest version of chicken cacciatore that I'll serve on celery-cumin rice. A fennel, gold beet and orange salad will precede the main course.

Beautiful Jenise, is that raw cauliflower I see in your salad?

[Robin Garr]

Thai green curry with eggplant and lemon-pepper tempeh. 

[Jenise]

Beautiful Jenise, is that raw cauliflower I see in your salad?

Uncooked, but not quite raw.

We had three couples over to help with the Hatch chile roast on Sunday--I had 52 pounds of chiles. Those who weren't involved outside in the rinsing/roasting/deseeding/bagging, which took about four hours, were busy inside helping me put together dinner, none of which had been done beforehand because of the four-hour traipse for the chiles. Many bottles of cold Mexican beer and vinho verde were on ice for libation. The meal was served in three stages so that food was available throughout the day and no one was drinking on an empty stomach: first, chips with an avocado/roasted corn/garlic/lime guacamole, then a platter of beer-poached peel n' eat shrimp with a feisty chipotle-pomegranate dipping sauce, and for the meal we ate when everything else was done (on so warm a night we ate outside!), tacos filled with slabs of hot roast pork, Tillamook cheddar and marinated green chiles; a red chile enchilada pie; a vegetable escabeche in lieu of salad; pickled jicama, watermelon wedges and blackberries. It was a wonderful, communal, food-centered way to spend an afternoon with good friends, and Mexican food of an entirely different style than any of them have had before. Everyone took chiles home.

Anyway, the cauliflower and carrots were in the escabeche, and a few spoonfulls of the leftovers, by now very well marinated, added good character to yesterday's ceviche.

Sounds like fun Jenise. What do you marinate your peppers in? We have very good friends who are from Mexico, and the food you prepared is much like how they cook. Everything is very fresh, healthy and different from the typical Tex-Mex restaurants serve here in town. Both are retired now, he from Shasta College. I keep asking them both to give cooking classes at the college for the local restaurant owners to learn how it is really done.
This year, I did not pull stems out of my peppers. Some fell off naturally after blackening the skins. Saved us a lot of time. When I take my peppers out of the freezer and prior to using, I give them a quick cold rinse just to thaw the skin. It pops right off, then I just pull the stem and seeds out. A few seeds get left behind, but it is not a big deal for me. My favorite way to use them is in braised dishes, especially short ribs and beef shanks. Of course the usual south west type dishes, chilie, rice, omelets. What are your favorite uses?

[Jenise]

Sounds like fun Jenise. What do you marinate your peppers in?

For hamburgers and tacos, just white wine vinegar, salt, oregano and a bit of olive oil.

We have very good friends who are from Mexico, and the food you prepared is much like how they cook. Everything is very fresh, healthy and different from the typical Tex-Mex restaurants serve here in town.

Interesting. I've actually never travelled to Mexico, and though the Mexican food I grew up on isn't Tex Mex as I know it from a few trips to Houston, neither is it much different--the usual standards with rice and beans. My version of Mexican food is all pretty much my own invention, reflective of my own desire for the old flavors in more modern, fresher formats with more variety and sophistication.

As for how I use the chiles, about 90% of them end up in hamburgers, tacos and salsas. I sometimes add them as a layer in a huevos rancheros breakfast for Bob. If I allowed myself the indulgence of mac n' cheese, they'd be there too. Otherwise they end up in one-offs like last night's cacciatore-by-way-of-Santa-Fe where a spicier version of a green pepper adds an interesting complexity.

[Jenise]

We're smoking salmon today, 32 pounds of white king and coho. Here's lunch, a salad of fresh local spinach with flaked smoked salmon, oil cured olives and a roasted tomato vinaigrette.

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Oh yum, that looks awesome. Crazy, interesting dish Jenise. Very whimsical!

Tonight is Butter Chicken Curry, over Orange Rice Pilaf, with a spinach salad of oranges, toasted pecans, carrot curls and a smoked paprika vinaigrette, with toasted and ground fennel seeds

[Robin Garr]

Sufferin' succotash! But this succotash has a Ph.D, kicked up to make a summer dinner. A farmers' market melange of sweet corn, lima beans, tomatoes, onions and garlic, diced potatoes a dab of butter and a little fresh sage. 

[Jenise]

We left our crab traps out to soak overnight, so fresh seafood's on the menu again today. I'll be going out to check them in about 30 minutes. For lunch, crab-salad stuffed artichokes. No mayo on that salad, but a vinaigrette style bound with toasted breadcrumbs and fresh tarragon--somewhat like a panzanella, but with a finer texture. And re that tarragon, waking up to 46 F today suddenly has me desperate to eat/use every fresh herb I can! Winter will be here any second now, and we're gonna go out fighting.

For dinner, no idea yet. But it shall probably involve crab, too.

We left our crab traps out to soak overnight, so fresh seafood's on the menu again today. I'll be going out to check them in about 30 minutes. For lunch, crab-salad stuffed artichokes. No mayo on that salad, but a vinaigrette style bound with toasted breadcrumbs and fresh tarragon--somewhat like a panzanella, but with a finer texture. And re that tarragon, waking up to 46 F today suddenly has me desperate to eat/use every fresh herb I can! Winter will be here any second now, and we're gonna go out fighting.

For dinner, no idea yet. But it shall probably involve crab, too.

Jenise, go to Lowe's or a Home Depot and get frost cloth. We use it all winter for lettuce. You can put stakes in the ground to hold it up over the crop.

It is fresh salmon tonight with a marinade of soy sauce, Dijon, garlic, evoo, served over a bed of fresh spinach, sauteed with garlic and a drizzle of fresh lime juice. On the side is an heirloom tomato and cucumber salad, with fresh oregano, sweet basil and garlic chives. Gene is grilling one half of a whole salmon, which we will enjoy having leftovers for lunch this week in salads.

[Jenise]

Jenise, go to Lowe's or a Home Depot and get frost cloth. We use it all winter for lettuce. You can put stakes in the ground to hold it up over the crop.

Never heard of it, but it would be worth trying if it extends my season a bit. Thanks!

[Jenise]

We caught 15 crabs this weekend. Served a platter of ten to guests yesterday to help themselves to while we played bocce. Also, a crab ceviche and chips, then for dinner curry-cured flank steak on arugula with separate tomato and potato/wax bean salads. For dessert, a whole wheat blueberry streusel cake.

This morning I shelled the rest of the crab and made a stock of the shells. I also roasted a lot of tomatoes, some of which will go with the crab stock into a bisque and the remainder of which I canned in two quart jars. I've got a pound of white asparagus ready to become the base of a warm crab and asparagus salad with a white truffle vinaigrette, and put together the base for a meat loaf that will make an excellent country-pate for cold plates on the over 80 degree days we've got coming up later this week (our first excursion over 80 all year, and what passes for an Indian summer herabouts).

Am also looking for more cukes to make pickles. One of the teenage friends who was here yesterday for some reason asked if I'd ever made homemade pickles. Sure, want to taste one? I gave him one from the jar I'd put up just last week, a kosher style refrigertor pickle. "That's the best pickle I've ever eaten!", he said--I'm sure he's never had anything but commercially made. So then the other three kids all wanted one. Or two. Then the eight adults all wanted to taste them too, which led to pickle discussions and more demonstrations with month-old and year old versions of the same style pickle. And there went almost two quarts of the five quarts of pickles I had to my name. Have to say I was also quite taken with the year-old pickles. Though I favor a new style, which is why all I ever make is refrigerator pickles, the gray transluscence of the year old pickles reminded me of the pickles my dear friend Stella used to make and serve almost every day at cocktail hour. She passed away not long ago, and the memory choked me up. I want to have more like them this time next year.

For Labor Day dinner we had smoked ribs (pecan smoke), tangy BBQ sauce, sourdough biscuits, and salad from our garden. Washed it down with Red Hook Late Harvest Ale.

[Jenise]

Carl, I want to eat at your house! Where do you get the pecan wood from, btw? That nut doesn't grow in your neck of the woods, I'm fairly sure.

Where do you get the pecan wood from, btw?

Chigger Creek Products, Syracuse, MO 65354; 660-298-3188. Remember we use a bowl full of soaked chips in the bottom of our electric water smoker.

[Robin Garr]

The summer of feeding ourselves mostly from the garden (and farmers' markets) continues, using green Romano beans again as the main ingredient in a Thai-style red curry with browned onions, garlic and ginger, a bit of tomato and coconut milk. 

[Jenise]

I had other plans for lunch, but the sad news of Daniel's passing caused me to rethink the menu. A corned beef sandwich would have been perfect. But lacking that, I perused the pantry and realized that a tuna salad, served open face on some dill-rye dinner rolls I bought yesterday, sidecarred by a few of my homemade kosher pickles (made as per Daniel's instructions!) would make a great a Jewish deli-style lunch that Daniel would very much approve of.

For dinner, we'll be having roasted pork ribs with succotash and some kind of a green salad.

[Jenise]

Cooking a birthday dinner for a friend tonight, and we'll be having another couple who are lifelong friends of hers join us too. Since tomorrow's her actual birthday and she'll be celebrating that at a local steakhouse, my menu has to be an anything-but-beef-and-caesar-salad menu. Thinking of her upcoming trip to Southern France which is my culinary wheelhouse anyway, I'm going with: crusty baguette slices with artichoke-olive tapenade, crab bisque, a salad that is a layering of arugula/gold beets/shaved fennel/goat cheese, roast pork loin thinly sliced and draped over a nicoise olive and sage bread pudding with garlic roasted green beans on the side, and a blueberry crisp since I'm still long on blueberries.

It all sounds delicious. The shaved fennel caught my eye, because while I have used it in cooked dishes, eating it raw has me stumped. I see so many beautiful salads using it, so decided to try one that not only looked beautiful but promised to be excellent. I picked up two very small bulbs at the store, wondered why they were so small, but figured they were baby fennel. I used my mandolin to shave them and when finished took a taste of the raw fennel....horrible taste. I threw it all away. The fennel I usually buy is large, so I was wondering if it is out of season and if this small fennel was really baby or a different type. I don't think I have ever seen it at our Farmer's Markets either.

Another thing, I loved that you had a lunch in honor of Daniel. Another cooking site I have visited for many years, lost a forum member last year. She was an excellent cook and had posted many recipes that ended up in the "Tried and True" section of the forum. In her honor, we all promised to make one or more of her recipes each week for a month. We then shared what we made. It was such a grand tribute to a nice lady.

[Jenise]

Karen, the small bulbs are typically both sweeter and much tenderer than the larger ones. Nothing there that should make you toss, unless you simply don't care for raw fennel. You can tame the flavor with a bit of citrus juice, but it isn't going to make that sharp licorice flavor go away. It's probably a love-or-hate kind of item.