mis en possible

Surprise, surprise, I’ve been ignoring my food blog. Finding this ‘multiple blog’ thing a bit harder than I’d intended, I’ve been focusing my efforts on getting photos of my daughter out to the interwebs for my family to enjoy.

I’m still cooking, though, being fairly busy, not as frequently as I’d like to. The other day I made this (pictured), though, and it turned out rather well, I’m happy to say.

I picked up some spicy Italian sausage, beat the living daylights out of a few breasts of chicken, stuffed it with the sausage and Parmesan cheese and then baked the. Finished with a cream sauce with basil and oregano. I believe I’ve found a way I like to eat chicken!

I’ve been working on a multi-course dinner idea and maybe we’ll have another soon. Until then, happy eating.

This is a work in progress though the first pass was tasty. Again, there’s not many ways a beurre blanc can fit into a ‘cutting calories’ diet, but each plate here used only about a tablespoon of sauce if that.

We only had some button mushrooms on hand for this, but I think I will eventually use trumpet royal mushrooms trimmed like scallops.

The brunoise is a collection of shallot, carrot, broccoli stem, Swiss chard, celery and zucchini that was sauted until aldente in Greek olive oil with a bit of the white wine thrown in at the end and garlic powder (I know, the horror).

I don’t have a recipe just yet, but maybe soon. In any event, this worked out well for a small-portion appetizer.

I don’t particularly like chicken, but since I’m eating healthy, I figure I ought to give it one more try.

My first attempt at this recipe was an unmitigated disaster. Flavorless or off-flavor, dry… it was everything I hate about boneless, skinless chicken breasts made worse by whatever the heck was coating it.

So on my second attempt, I made a few tweaks.

The first thing I did was get rid of the sesame seeds. They add nothing. I replaced them with sliced almonds (though only a few. I’d originally used a whole-wheat cracker, but this time around, I used an Italian-flavored organic cracker that I found at Central Market.

When it came time to bake, instead of putting them on a baking sheet, I put them on a rack on the baking sheet. This prevented the bottom from becoming soggy. I also cooked them 40 minutes (or rather to temperature, 167 before carryover).

And, because I love it, I garnished it with a hefty dose of Hungarian Smoked Paprika.

Finally, to kick up the spice a bit, I set it on top of a bed of my recipe-in-the-works healthy but fiery cayenne coleslaw.

On the topic of healthy eating, I’ve found that I can actually cook in quite a bit less fat as well as substituting relatively-healthy olive oil in for the massive amounts of butter I used to use. And I’ve found I can eek a lot more flavor out of butter simply by taking a small amount and letting it brown slightly.

This dish was made, literally, with what we had laying around the house left over from other projects. Heather was toying with the camera so captured a bit of the mis en place for the dish. One onion, two carrots, two yellow squash, two zucchini. I sauted the onion for a few minutes in a bit of olive oil, then added the carrot, then about 2 minutes later, the squash and zucchini. To the saute I added a hint of cumin and a good helping of Hungarian smoked paprika and a bit of garlic salt (the horror! but it works here) as I didn’t feel like cutting up any garlic. After it had all started to soften, I added in a half cup of white wine and let that boil away.

All while this was going on, I sliced up half a tomato we had left over, a seeded cucumber, and zested a meyer lemon. The juice of half the lemon went into the saute. On another burner, I was boiling the Acini di Pepe away.

At the last minute before combining, I added a handful of sliced almonds to the sauted vegetables and let that cook for a minute or so, then combined the warm vegetables, lemon zest, pasta and a little bit of oil, browned butter and salt.

The plate was garnished with a wedge of the remaining lemon half, the cucumber and the tomato.

It was good. Fresh and the contrast between the saute and the clean vegetables and the lemon really added some punch. We ate it and have had it the last two nights as a side dish.

I love food. I love French food, rich food, and lots of it.

However, there comes a time when that will catch up to a person. Sadly, it caught up with me a few years ago, I just hadn’t realized it yet.

So I’m trying to alter my diet such that it’s significantly more healthy. I’m not doing a ‘fad diet’ or even any particular diet, just watching what I eat, when I eat, and how much I eat.

How’s it going? Meh. I’m sticking to my guns, but the food could leave a bit to be desired. When you consume a very unhealthy amount of butter, going to a scant tablespoon or so of olive oil for similar dishes changes things. In any event, baked chicken, pasta with saute of squash, zucchini and tomato, rice with steamed broccoli and saute of mushrooms, non-sugary cereals, whole grain breads. I feel better, which I guess is encouraging.

The first ’shot worthy’ dish is not the most impressive dish I’ve ever come up with. That’s angel hair, tossed with a scant bit of olive oil, a wee bit of white wine in the vegetable saute (batonettes of squash and zucchini, diced tomato and diced onion), and a bit of parm cheese over the top (not much!), and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice and some parsley chiffonade.

I ate it. Heather liked it. Zoe devoured it. It’s not the prettiest dish ever, but then again, I’m not going for pretty.

I’m in a rut cooking-wise as well as elsewhere. We’ve been doing a lot of pasta lately and none of it very fancy, just functional. Last week I got sick and I can never get up the energy to cook while I’m sick and I’ve been preoccupied on the weekends getting the back yard ready for summer. To top it all off, my foot gives me some serious trouble after standing on the hard kitchen floors for more than about 20 minutes.

So, all excuses aside, I’ll just leave off with a few pics… the first of my soup and the latter two of Heather’s bread and biscotti.

The first dish is yet-another-attempt at getting a pure white soup. I don’t know what my fascination is with creating a pure white soup but I want to and I want it to taste good. When some smoked paprika was added as a garnish, this dish was not only smooth but had this wonderful smokey flavor (oddly enough) that played well against the richness of the soup.

I’ve not the foggiest what I put in here beyond white wine, celeriac, cauliflower, white vegetable stock, onions, garlic, cream, a russet potato, white pepper and white truffle oil (hrm, that might be it… make up some good ratios, cook until everything is tender, then blend the heck out of it, and add the cream and oil last, after the blending, garnish with the paprika and some microgreens… might work). Anyway, this is the first pure white soup where I went back for seconds, thirds, and fourths.

On to the pictures of the baked goods…

Oh, and why don’t we throw in a picture of one of my favorite drinks… Coron Pere & Fils 2004 Burgundy:

I took the same marinade and cooking technique used in the post about the ‘London broil’ and approached a decent-sized Ribeye the same way and then sliced that pretty thin (eighth of an inch or so) . Sure, it takes for ever and a day to cook this way, but it tastes pretty good when all is said and done.

And just to completely bastardize a decent dish, I took pasta (capellini) and made a beurre rouge with an added heaping of crushed garlic and for visuals and tasty floral notes, I added some edible flowers. For some reason the deep red color of the sauce gets distributed around the pasta… not quite as bold a look as I though I might have. In any event, it was tasty, though in all honesty, I could really do without the flowers.

I think I may open a dinner with this at some point. Although it’s rich, it achieves a good peak about 3 bites in which to me seems like a good starter.

At the aforementioned Whole Foods, I acquired the aforementioned grass-fed beef; two cuts to be exact: a rib eye and a “London Broil” which is odd, because a London Broil is what you do to certain types of steak. It was flank or something, pretty tough cut and about 12 oz worth, so I decided that I’d try a marinade:

1/2 Cup Mushroom-Flavored Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon rice-wine vinegar
2 ‘quarter-size’ pieces of ginger, finely-diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 shallot, finely diced
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

I let the marinade sit overnight and the next day poured it over the seasoned and trimmed steak and vacuum packed it. Into the refrigerator for 24 hours for a ‘get some flavor’ timeout.

Picking up on a recent article in Cook’s Illustrated, I liberated the steak from its packaging, gave it a quick bath and dried it off. Horizontally, I inserted a meat thermometer timed to go off at 115 degrees. I put it in a cold oven and turned it to 200 degrees. About 40 minutes later, out came the steak, out came the thermometer, and in it went into a bit of olive oil in a smoking hot pain — 3 minutes one side, 2 minutes the next. After letting it rest for 5 minutes, I sliced it about 1/4 inch thick across the grain and served it over the top of some mixed greens on top of jasmine rice, with a ginger, soy and lime vinaigrette.

The result? Pretty much perfect medium-rare and a ton of flavor. I was iffy on the dressing (as you’ll see, it’s not posted here), but the rest was really good. I don’t generally do a whole lot with Asian flavors, but this worked really, really well. The remainder of the beef I sliced paper-thin and it will be headed toward a sandwich very, very soon.

And thumbs up for the grass fed beef. It’s odd, but you can actually taste the difference. It’s no waygu, but it’s good.

This post has absolutely no substance, it’s simply to show off my wife’s baking. The above are the result of a new sourdough culture (named ‘Fred’) she’s been tending to and I’ve enjoyed the living daylights out of it. Sourdough, rosemary sourdough, sourdough raisin… and it’s all as good as it looks.

I don’t bake unless I absolutely have to so I often just stand in awe of some of the things she produces.

We’ve fallen in love with Perle pasta. It has all of the warmth and comforting depth of gnocchi but it cooks faster which is a wonderful trait when managing the timely demands of a 2-year old. It takes a mere minute and thirty seconds to cook and you can actually cheat and do it in a fairly small pan. They don’t turn out perfect but they’re perfectly edible in just a few minutes.

I’ve been toying around with some really good canned chopped tomatoes we’ve started picking up at Costco of all places. I’m usually not a fan of canned chopped tomatoes, preferring to use whole peeled instead, but this stuff is great for making a quick sauce. I don’t have a recipe, but here’s the basic formula:

Half an onion, small dice. 4 Cloves of garlic, small dice. 1 Shallot, small dice. Saute the onion in bit of olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add shallot and garlic and saute for about 2 more minutes. Add about a tablespoon of tomato paste and saute for another minute or two. Add in 1/4 cup dry white wine and let it reduce a bit (3-5 minutes). Drain the tomatoes and add only the solids. Let it simmer for 10 minutes or so. Add in 1 tablespoon dried parsley, 1 tablespoon dried oregano, and 2 tablespoons of dried basil. Let it simmer for another minute or two. Transfer to a blender and blend like crazy. While blending, carefully remove the top and add cream until desired flavor is reached. Naturally, season and re-season at just about every step.

The smoked gouda adds something to this combination of flavors that you just couldn’t get with Parmigiano-Reggiano (which would be my normal go-to flavor addition).

The grocery store had these little gems the other day: beta sweet carrots. I wasn’t sure what to make of them or what to do with them. When I’ve picked out odd looking carrots before, I’ve always been disappointed that once you peel them, they look just like normal carrots.

These, though, are not. Before I read a few pages about them, I’d already cooked them so I’d half figured they were part carrot part beet (yes, my hands are still blue). The purple exterior penetrated the carrot around an eighth of an inch or so. They were visually stunning, a quality that, unfortunately due to my negligence, didn’t make it into the final dish (I blanched them about 90 seconds too long, I think).

The result? They’re sweet, a bit earthy, and very carrot-y. I blanched them, shocked them, then used a light champagne and raspberry vinaigrette and garnished with chopped parsley and chive. Simple, good, and very interesting looking. What more could you want from a carrot?