Sonoma memories

Summer vacation, ahhh. Only a few months late. We just returned from a week in Sonoma, California. What a wonderful trip full of wine tasting, good food, and beautiful fall colors in the vineyards. I highly recommend the Vintners Inn as a lodging location near Santa Rosa. It consists of three two-story buildings that house the rooms, which results in a cozy, private-like setting. Our room overlooked the vineyard and had a petite patio on which to lounge and enjoy the fall colors. Importantly, it also had a jogging path through the surrounding vineyards. After all the tasting and eating, we definitely wanted to take advantage of an exercise option in the idyllic setting. However, instead of their breakfast, which didn't rank high on my list, go to Flying Goat Coffee in Santa Rosa or Healdsburg. Delicious coffee and pastries are available. I also sampled espresso at Bad Ass Coffee because it sounded fun. Turns out it wasn't much to look at other than the cute ass logo, which didn't come out too well in the photo, but the espresso was very, very good.

From one stimulant to another...the wine tasting is outstanding in Sonoma - over 70 wineries to visit.  Needless to say, we didn't quite get to them all. The sights also delighted. From salmon swimming up streams to beautiful gardens and a bronze wild pig statue. Next post....all the wines we tasted and falling in love with Pinot. Enjoy a few winery pics in the meantime!





Tasting Event #3

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, so we tasted four wines that should go well with turkey and fixin's. With help from our friends at Midtown Wine & Spirits, we picked out four very different wines - two whites and two reds:

1. A German Riesling: Von Schleinitz from Mosel - Weissenberg Kabinett  @ $19.99
2. A South African Chenin Blanc: Secateurs @ $16.99
3. A California Pinot Noir: Belle Glos Meiomi @ $19.99
4. A French Syrah-Grenache blend from the Languedoc region: H & B (Hecht & Bannier) Minervois @ $19.99

In order to determine which went best with thanksgiving food, we also served small plates of fall tastes - tenderized turkey breast steaks topped with stuffing and smothered in provolone with a splash of gravy, roasted sliced brussel sprouts with bacon, and a sweet and gold potato gratin.

So, our results: the Reisling was a little too sweet for most people on its own.  It was much better with the food, but some still thought it was too sweet. The Chenin Blanc was delicious on its own with a good minerality to it.  It had the acidity to cope with the richness of the food, yet it didn't really stand up well against the food. That is, it didn't bring anything to the food and its own flavors disappeared.  The Pinot Noir was the big hit, combining some nice up-front fruit with a bit of spice.  It was delicious by itself but paired extremely well with the food, especially the brussel sprouts. If you wanted something a little heartier than a Pinot Noir, the Minervois was exceptional. The Syrah-Grenache blend and style is similar to that of more widely available Cotes-du-Rhones, should you have trouble finding an offering from Minervois in your wine shop.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tasting Event #2

Sadly, my write-up from our last tasting is way overdue.  My apologies.  Sincere thanks go to Bradley at Midtown & Spirits for helping us pick out a great selection of five pinot noirs. Our second tasting consisted of pinots from New Zealand, France (Burgundy region), the Willamette Valley in Oregon and another from Russian River Valley, California. The last was an inexpensive, mass market, pinot noir from California.

Here are the details on the five:

1. Mark West, California (mass market wine) - $10.99
2. Nobilo Icon, New Zealand - $14.99
3. Argyle, Willamette Valley, Oregon - $22.99
4. LWC, Loring Wine Company, Russian River Valley, California - $19.99
5. Marsannay, Louis Latour, the Burgundy region in France - $22.99

We paired the tastings with several cheeses, charcuterie and fresh ripe figs wrapped in prosciutto. While we did a blind tasting again, I was certain I knew which one I would like best. Imagine my surprise when what I thought would be my favorite turned out third on my list.  My first and second favorites were as much a surprise as was the group's consensus.  As happened last time, everyone liked all of them and would happily drink any of them (let's just say that no one in the group was sipping & spitting), but side-by-side (don't judge us too harshly) the Mark West, the least expensive, came in first.  Although it was neither a clear nor unanimous favorite (Nobilo & Argyle also got first-place votes), it was the definite winner as a value proposition. Our rank orderings diverged dramatically.  My second place was the New Zealand Pinot Noir.  What I had expected to by my favorite, the Argyle from Willamette Valley, came in as my third favorite. There was no consensus on the least favorite.

As for taste profiles, as reconstructed from sketchy notes and fading memory, the Mark West had a spiciness to it that stood out from the others and, perhaps surprisingly for a wine at that price point, clearly improved with time. The Marsannay had a bit of the earthiness that one associates with Burgundy, LWC had a floral nose and hints of strawberry, the Nobilo was black cherry, and the Argyle was silky smooth with hints of violet.

Next up...Turkey wines. What goes best with a Thanksgiving meal? Paired, of course, with a little turkey and other thanksgiving edibles.

Baked Figs and Bread

Just about ready for the oven.  Old fashioned health nut bread (http://acooksmusings.blogspot.com/2011/04/bread-old-fashioned-way.html) and baked figs with Madeira and thyme (and a little brown sugar).

Julie Child's Influence?

Reading articles about Julia Child's recent 100th birthday by Jacques Pépin, Julia Moskin and others made me reminisce about why I became interested in cooking.  I barely knew who Julia Child was when I was young.  Sure, I had heard of her, but had never seen her show nor did we have her cookbooks.  Maybe my mother was influenced by her.  This was the 70s when family meals were becoming something to be cherished as more and more mothers entered and stayed in the workplace.  My mother was one of those. She was a teacher, always working, always devoted to her students. There was rarely a night during the school year when she wasn't grading papers or working on lesson plans.  In addition, she sewed our clothes, gardened, taught piano lessons, hauled us to our own lessons - ballet, symphony, cello, violin, and flute. How she ever did all of that and put not only food on the table, but also good food is still an amazing feat to me.

She was and is an adventurous and good cook. She has never seen a recipe she couldn't adapt to what she had on hand. My husband complains that I picked up this habit of not following recipes from her - I frequently disagree with recipes - either the ingredient list or more often their preparation instructions. My husband, being a scientist, thinks recipes are written to be followed exactly and when I first met him, he followed the instructions on the boxed mac & cheese box literally - it said 6 cups of water, he used 6 cups of water. He said they wouldn't have written instructions if they weren't meant to be followed. Sigh, the scientist versus the adventurous cook. While science has a great deal to do with cooking, I didn't think boxed mac & cheese was one of those areas that needed strict rules. However, the most frequent reason I change recipes is that there are certain methods I was taught at the Cordon Bleu that I completely abide by as tried and true methods. While I've never scientifically tested if they make a difference, I will change a recipe's methods to adhere to my training. Sheesh, what a stick in the mud I can be and so hypocritical of my husband wanting to following the mac & cheese box recipe!

I think I get my love of reading recipes and cookbooks from my mother as well. For years I kept all the little free cookbooks a young child could get from mail away coupons, tear-away sections from magazines, or pick up at the grocery store. We didn't buy a lot of real cookbooks when I was young. You just didn't do that. We had Betty Crocker, a smattering of others, and we subscribed to Sunset Magazine - this was all that one really needed and certainly all it took to plant a seed for me.

Another great part about growing up in my family were the cherished visits to the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. While we lived a little less than an hour outside of Seattle, my grandparents lived in the city and once in a while when we went to visit them my mother and grandmother would take me and my sister to Pike Place. Back then it was a bit grungy and hippy in a seedy part of town, but to a young kid the wonderful labyrinth of shops and stalls was a fascinating and awe-inspiring view into unknown worlds. I remember a shop on the second floor - or was it the third? I always got lost. It was just down the stairs from the fish stalls that now have hundreds of tourists flocking to see the fish fly. It was an Italian market with dried fruits I had never seen before, pastas in shapes that seemed to mean something (no, not like the crude shapes made into space needles, penises, or what have you today).  These were pastas that were meant for particular sauces and that was intriguing.  There were also dried beans galore - shapes and colors that someone knew how to cook.  I wanted to know how to cook these beans and wanted to know why one pasta was destined for one sauce and another for something else. I loved Pike Place. I still go back when I can on visits to Seattle, but it's changed now that markets are ultra-trendy.  I'm grateful that it has survived and still love it, but it's lost a little of its marvel. The hippy, weird shops are mostly gone, replaced by high-end chic shops, but the essential food stalls are still there and some of the restaurant additions and alley shops just outside the market have added wonderful edibles to explore.

So, between family influence and unique opportunities that a time and place provided me, I came to love thinking about food and how to cook it. For whatever influence Julia Child had on that, I am grateful.

Tasting Event #1

We are playing with the notion of hosting a monthly tasting event. Having science backgrounds we find ourselves highly entertained by comparison tastings - does a Caipirinha taste better with 51 Cachaça or Pitú Cachaça?  Does a Manhattan taste better with 100% Rye or a blend of Rye and Bourbon? How do single malt Scotch Whiskys taste different by Scottish distillery and region?  Why stop with liquor, how about cheeses or chocolates?  And, better yet, why not share the fun with others? Yes, we have sciency friends, too, although that's not a prerequisite.

The warm weather of summer made us lean toward white wines as a first foray - crisp and cool would be welcome during this brutally hot summer. However, on second thought, we decided on Rosé wines. These delightful wines, best served between 10-12°C, provide an equally refreshing respite from the heat, and at our local wine shop we have noticed a growing selection each time we return. I was delighted to explore something that had been scorned in the US for many years (likely due to its association with White Zin), but now appears to have surged in popularity.

The difficult part in this entire plan was narrowing down which ones to taste. We ended up with nine guests for our first event and, while there is no rule in my book on how many wines one should taste at a tasting, we decided on four wines for this first foray. Once we knew how many we would taste, we then had to decide how to pick. Do we pick across countries (Chile, France, Spain, Italy, etc.) or, perhaps, within a country but across its regional variations? Because many different regions of France were represented among the offerings at our favorite local shop (Midtown Wine & Spirits), we decided to stay within France. We ended up with wines from the Loire Valley, the Rhone Valley, Provence, and the Savoie region (near the Alps). They were all 2011 vintages and cost between $14 and $20.  Here were the wines we served:

1. Rosé Gamay from Les Rocailles (Appellation Vin De Savoie, near the Alps) at $15.99
2. Rosé d'Anjou from Monmaousseau (Appellation Rosé d'Anjou, in the Loire valley) at $13.99
3. Commanderie de la Bargemone (Appellation Coteaux d'Aix en Provence) at $18.99
4. Chateau de Tringuevedel (Appellation Tavel, in the Rhone Valley) at $19.99

Now that wines were picked and guests had rsvp'd, we had to decide on nibbles to serve and the process of the event. We wanted the wines to speak for themselves so my husband opened the wines, removing all the foil, and put them into paper bags. Once he left the room, my job was to come in and number the bags randomly and then place them in order from 1 to 4. This allowed us to also participate in tasting without preconceived notions of what the wine would taste like (the Provence Rosé we served was one we drink often).

Each guest was given four wine glasses (renting glassware is easy and fairly cheap), some 3x5 note cards, oyster crackers and water for palate cleansing. Nosh was self-serve at their leisure. We provided cured meats, pecorino and idiazabal cheeses, olive tapanade, tomato bruschetta topping, and tomato-based spicy curry topping, along with sliced baguette and crackers.

At 4pm we all convened and proceeded to taste, compare and contrast. While I determined that I would drink any of the wines, we all had our favorites. I was alone in casting my vote for favorite to the Tavel, a wine that one guest said wanted to be a red wine. I prefer reds to anything else, so I guess I'm not surprised at my choice. The majority rated the Provence Rosé as the one they'd most likely buy. Provence is known as the Rosé region in France so our friends confirmed its reputation. This wine had the perfect balance of bright fruit flavors with a dry finish. The wine from the Savoie region was a little too understated for most, while the Rosé d'Anjou was on the sweet side for several of us. All except the Savoie received a vote for favorite, so we didn't end up with any skunks thanks to the help from our wine purveyor.

All in all I think we've hit upon a successful idea that we're excited to continue. For the next couple of weeks we get to ponder what will be next month's tasting!  Comment with your ideas and we'll let you know what we decide and how it turns out.

Dinner Menu - composed and executed

The long wait was over yesterday morning after a trip to the local farmers market.  In the paper this morning it said that there are now 7,864 farmers markets across the United States, a growth of 9.6% over last year and far exceeding the 1,744 back in 1994.  What a great trend!  We've loved the farmers markets in our backyards from the Pike Place Market in Seattle, to the Bloomington Farmers Market in Bloomington, Indiana, to the St. Philips Market in Tucson, Arizona to now the West Nashville Farmers Market in Nashville, Tennessee.

The farmers market made our decisions and here is what we ended up with...

Watermelon Mint Margaritas with Chips, Salsa and Fresh Guacamole (watermelon, cucumber and jalapenos from the market, mint from our small container garden)

Mini Quesadillas - 2 varieties: 1) Roasted Corn, Negro Chilies, Goat Cheese, Garlic Chives; 2) Manchego and Chorizo. The corn was from the market and fresh negro chilies and garlic chives were from our container garden (chilies were grown from seed bought at Native Seeds/SEARCH).

Classic Andalusian Gazpacho (tomatoes, cucumber, and green peppers from the market)

Puerco Pibil and Cilantro Rice (tomatoes and anaheim chilies from the market)

Jicama and Red Pepper Slaw with Cumin-Orange Dressing (red and green peppers, red cabbage from the market)

Oaxacan Chocolate Pot du Creme (made with Xocolatl chocolate picked up at the Tucson farmers market earlier in the year)

What makes a great meal, though, are the guests and we are lucky in having wonderful friends to share our evenings with.  Thank you!

Dinner Menu Planning...Stage 3

The day is almost upon us.  I've decided what the main course will be, which helps narrow the rest of the menu. Now for a trip to the farmer's market in the morning and we'll be ready to call it a final menu. Will share soon!

Dinner Menu Planning...Stage 2

Now comes the percolation and wait.  I have a long list of dishes I would like to make for our dinner party on Saturday, but a menu still needs to form from them.  A few more days thinking about it and then a trip to the farmers market on Saturday morning to see what is best - will it be the watermelon, the peaches, the corn, the eggplant...? That trip should decide what ends up on the menu that night.  So many possibilities exists right now for a fine meal. Let's hope we can pull it off!

Dinner Party Menu Planning

I started working on a menu for dinner with friends next Saturday.  First thing I usually start with is brainstorming a list of all kinds of things I might want to make, taking into account what is in season and what type of cooking is most seasonal.  Right now, I'd prefer to use the oven as little as possible and focus on something grilled, and watermelon is in season as well as corn, peppers, eggplant, squash, etc.  Once I have my brainstormed list, it's time to start fleshing out what goes with what and what I could do with each vegetable, fruit or meat.  So, on the watermelon front it might be frozen watermelon margaritas or watermelon sorbet. If we go the margarita route, might have to throw some fajitas on the grill or make puerco pibil - the latter very amenable to a slow cooker, which I can put out on the porch to avoid heating up the house.  We had such amazing pibil at Border Grill in Santa Monica, CA several years ago that we walked away with their cookbook (http://bordergrill.com).  I rarely pick up a restaurant cookbook, but this time I couldn't resist and wasn't disappointed.  Their recipe for puerco pibil turns out great.  If we go with watermelon sorbet lots of other options come to mind.  I found a great sounding watermelon sorbet recipe to try from A Sweet Pea Chef, a fellow blogger's website: http://www.asweetpeachef.com/ice-cream/watermelon-sorbet/.  This is one of my favorite parts of the dinner planning process - so many ways one could go and time to think about building on flavors, textures and design. It's a pleasurable creative process for me.  Based on what we get in today's CSA share I might get other ideas for next week.  More thoughts later...

Happy 4th! Steak and Potatoes

What could be more quintessential than grilled meat and potatoes for Independence Day in the United States?!  While there are more and more Americans choosing to be vegetarians and vegans (and yes, you are cool), there are still plenty of us carnivores. The farmers market this past weekend had beautiful fingerling potatoes, which are so easily cooked in a variety of fashions - steamed, roasted, grilled, etc.  Serve with a little herbed butter and life is good.  The potatoes pair wonderfully with a grilled steak, and one of our favorites is a marinated flank steak.  Grill and slice it thin against the grain and serve over arugula - divine. Here is our go-to marinade for flank steak, which was given to me by a dear friend many years ago.  Of all the marinade recipes we have, we almost always use this one for flank steak.

Steak Marinade

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup or more dry red wine
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 large clove garlic, sliced
• 3 scallions, sliced (I found purple scallions at the farmers market)
• Generous pinch of celery seed (do not use celery salt)
• Juice of 1 large lemon
• 1 flank steak, scored on edges and across grain diagonally

Preparation

Mix all ingredients together and pour over flank steak.  Marinate for 2-12 hours and turn steak halfway through marinade time.  Remove flank steak from marinade and grill to desired doneness.  Discard marinade. Be sure to let the flank steak rest for 5 minutes or so after removing from the grill, then slice thinly across the grain.

Dinner Club

By happenstance and good fortune, my husband and I have been part of a dinner club for five wonderful years.  We get together with two other couples every couple of months, and last night was our turn to host.  Life has been extremely busy of late so we didn't decide on the contents of dinner until yesterday morning - yikes!  I usually contemplate and plan dinner parties for up to a week or longer. Not this time, but we did have plans to hit the farmer's market first thing in the morning to see what spoke to us and go from there.  The beautiful swiss chard, which goes so well fish, was what ended up speaking to us.  So, the main course was basically settled, just added in a herbed quinoa pilaf to round it out.  There were some early hot-house tomatoes that also looked good, and I had been wanting to make a cold Andalusian creamy gazpacho since it was going to hit the 90s and higher this weekend.  So, a cold first course was settled.  Now, there were lovely peaches and blueberries to use for dessert, but I was beginning to feel nostalgic, so I decided that a Rhubard Custard Pie like my mother used to make sounded like a good finish.  So, off to the store for fish and rhubarb. The store yielded some beautiful sockeye salmon.  The only thing left to decide was nosh to accompany cocktails when everyone first arrived.  We bought some cheeses, but once home we neglected to polish off the smoked pheasant crepes at lunch, so I blended the leftover smoked pheasant with some goat cheese, lemon zest and juice, and garlic chives for a version of my smoked pheasant pâté.  I think it's even better than the original version I posted awhile back because the goat cheese adds a piquant note that lends itself to the lemon and both of which cut the intensity of the smoked pheasant.

The salmon recipe my family has used for years is below.  It's not exact and one could definitely play with the quantities, but it makes any salmon taste amazing. You could probably use chum and it'd be great.

Barbequed Salmon

Ingredients

• ~3 - 5 pounds salmon side(s), skin on
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (can substitute olive oil)
• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup soy sauce (could use low-sodium)
• Juice from 1 large lemon
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 2 teaspoons seasoning salt
• 4 slices bacon, optional

Preparation

If using a whole salmon, prepare the salmon by cleaning off the scales and removing the fins, head and tail.  Split in half.  Remove the backbone and as many bones as you can. If using a side of salmon start here. Lay skin side down in a large pan.

Melt butter and add rest of ingredients except for bacon.  Pour over salmon.  Lightly cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Can be refrigerated overnight.

To barbeque:  Light the briquettes and wait until they are white hot.  Put the fish skin side down on the grill and add bacon strips over the top, if using.  Add a few wood chips (alder, apple, maple – deciduous trees only).  Cover with barbeque lid.  Let cook until the fish is done in the thickest part – check by pulling apart to see if it flakes properly.  Cut into serving sections.  Remove by lifting sections off the skin and onto a platter.  Serve with lemon wedges, if desired.

Creme Wafers

I had a little leftover creme fraiche, what to do? Creme wafers leapt to mind - the most tender of cookies - I want to call them biscuits in the British parlance. They are essentially tender, flaky pie pastry with sugar on top. There are fun options to the recipe - you can use a different spice with the sugar such as allspice, cloves, or "pumpkin pie spice". You could also sandwich two cookies together with buttercream, nutella, ganache...mmmm.

Roberta's Creme Wafers

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup creme fraiche or whipping cream
• 2 cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
• Cinnamon sugar or sparkling sugar

Preparation

Place all ingredients except cinnamon (or sparkling) sugar in a food processor and mix until just blended.  Place dough in bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least one hour.  Flour a rolling surface and roll dough out to 1/4" thickness. Cut into desired shapes, using a fork, gently prick surface and then sprinkle with cinnamon or sparkling sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes

Tamales!

Have you ever seen a cookbook you just had to buy?  I was shelf surfing at Native Seed Search last time I was in Tucson and couldn't help but buy "tantalizing tamales" by Gwyneth Doland (Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2007).  I've been wanting to make tamales for ages and this cookbook appeared to be very approachable.  Turns out it is great - it is easy to follow the instructions and has great recipes for tamale doughs, fillings and sauces!

So, off I went.  I recalled hearing rumors of asparagus tamales made in central Washington that sell out in a day, which made me think of the asparagus I had in the refrigerator.  Given that I've never had those asparagus tamales, I have no idea what to try, but I thought it was worth trying something.

First, I poached a whole chicken last week, saved the stock, and stripped the meat off the bones. I used the stock to make the masa and used most of the shredded meat to stuff the tamales, along with 3/4 pound of fresh asparagus that I blanched and chopped into 2" pieces. I had a little leftover shredded manchego cheese from the marathon brunch yesterday that I was able to use up in a few as well.

The masa was much easier to make than I had expected. I used the heart-healthy recipe (see below), which may not satisfy those who are used to full-lard versions; however, I thought they were more than acceptable. I was also a little worried when it suggested having lots of friends form an assembly line, but that didn't turn out to be necessary. Having the right equipment and an assembly line layout did the trick - I have always thought I'd be a great assembly line factory worker.  Maybe I missed my calling!

The chicken and asparagus turned out great - served with a salsa verde - yum.  The pork and red chile sauce needs more work.

If you haven't tried making tamales - give it a go.  It's much easier than it sounds!  Now I get to watch my lemon basil grow from the seeds I also bought at Native Seed Search and look forward to making delicious pesto later this summer!

Heart-Smart Masa

Courtesy of Tantalizing Tamales, by Gwyneth Doland, Rio Nuevo Publishers 2007

Ingredients

• 6 cups masa harina
• 6 cups homemade or low-sodium chicken stock
• 1 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Preparation

In the workbowl of a standing mixer, beat together the masa harina, chicken stock, oil, salt, and baking powder until fully combined.

Simple, huh?! Go on, give it a try!

Brunch Preparations

Next weekend is the Country Music Marathon here in Nashville. This marathon is big - gaggles of runners and a good-sized crowd to cheer them on. The route has live music at several locations, and it traverses many neighborhoods, including ours. We live a 1/2 block from a point on the course where there is a band, and we have a tradition, 5 years' strong, of hosting a post-cheering brunch on our deck.  Early in the morning we gather with friends down at the race and watch, cheer, sip various beverages and then, when we wear out from cheering, we all gather on our deck and indulge in more drinks and brunch eats. We can still hear the music and catch glimpses of runners through the trees. This year's eats will consist of smoked pheasant pâté and bagels; grilled vegetable tarts; speck, manchego, and sun-dried tomato tarts; artichoke, red pepper, and cheese strata; strawberries and cream; and blueberry streusel coffeecake.  Drinks will most likely include Chris' mouth watering spicy bloody mary's as well as Lori's divine peach bellinis. You have to love friends who bring killer drinks along for the celebration. I'll post more recipes and pictures, but here is one to get things started.

The smoked pheasant pâté is really simple, except for finding a smoked pheasant. I happen to get mine from South Dakota, thanks to my brother-in-law who is always able to hook me up when I need one. For the less well-connected, there are online sources for them from both South Dakota and Missouri.

Smoked Pheasant Pâté

Ingredients

• 1 smoked pheasant, meat removed from the bone and skin
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1 Tablespoon fresh chopped thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preparation

Once you have removed the meat from the skin and bones (make sure you get all the buckshot out!), chop bigger chunks into 1" pieces so they grind up evenly.  Place meat in a food processor and pulse until evenly chopped into small pieces.  Add in cream cheese, thyme, lemon zest and juice. Blend thoroughly. You can make the pheasant go further if you add more cream cheese. If you do so, add more thyme and lemon as well. Let it sit for at least two hours in the refrigerator so the flavors have time to blend. Serve with crackers, baguette or bagels and some chopped red onion.

Fresh Asparagus - go get it now!

If you have the opportunity to buy or mooch fresh asparagus off a friend, do so - immediately!  We were given some fresh asparagus just today and it was amazing.  As a child I remember picking asparagus in orchards my uncles had  - it just grew wild underneath the trees - and I enjoyed it then, but eating freshly picked as an adult - heaven!

Today we just cooked enough stalks to eat with our pork roast.  I took a 10" saute pan (regular, don't use non-stick), filled it with water and a pinch of salt.  Brought it to a boil and put in the stalks and boiled them for about 3 minutes.  I didn't think they needed any additional seasoning.

Tomorrow, maybe Grandma's Asparagus!  Rumor has it that you can get asparagus tamales in eastern Washington that are only available during asparagus season and are divine.  Maybe I'll have to try my hand at that as well.  I just bought a Tamales cookbook while in Tucson.  I'm inspired to attempt them sometime soon.

Bunny Chow

Bunny chow is the best take-away meal I've ever had.  I love curries and this is the ultimate curry to go.  Served in its own dish (a hallowed-out bread loaf), it is outstanding.  You can get them in 1/4 or 1/2 loaves (the picture is a 1/4 loaf).  Never heard of one?  Not surprising, I've only heard of them in South Africa and once on a world food cart in Los Angeles.  If anyone has a recipe to share I would love one!  The key is not just the curry, but the bread, which is not typical in America, but common elsewhere. The bread is dense without being heavy and prevents the curry from soaking through.

Simple Appetizer

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to host my old book club while on a return visit to the city I moved from eight years ago.  It was wonderful to see everyone and have them all read my current favorite book, Stealing Mona Lisa.  Among the few nibbles I offered the favorite was cream cheese with Jezabel Sauce.  It's a very simple appetizer  that is sweet and salty with just the slightest hot kick.  They begged me to put it up on my blog.  Next time I'm going to put this sauce over goat cheese.

Jezabel  Sauce and Cheese Appetizer

Ingredients

• 8 ounces regular cream cheese, tofutti, chèvre or goat cream cheese
• 2/3 cup citrus marmalade (e.g., orange, mixed citrus, kumquat)
• 2 Tablespoons horseradish sauce, or more to taste (use prepared sauce, not freshly grated)

Preparation

Bring all ingredients to room temperature.  Mix marmalade and horseradish together.  Spoon over cheese and serve with crackers.  If using a cream cheese, you can save a little back and put into a piping bag and decorate the rest of the block with rosettes before spooning over the sauce.  The decorating works best if serving a large crowd and using the big blocks of cream cheese (3 lbs.) you can purchase at Costco or a restaurant food supply store.  You then have more cream cheese to decorate with. It's a little skimpy to do this with the 8 ounce block, but doable if you double all the ingredients.

My mother makes a delicious kumquat marmalade that really sets this dish off, so if you have a kumquat tree, it's totally worth making marmalade out of the fruit and using it for this recipe!

Serve with crackers.

You can also serve the Jezabel sauce with meats such as ham, beef, or lamb.

Valentine's Preparations

We have some nice wine that we want to have for Valentine's day so my job is to come up with a dinner menu.  What to have...what to have. We love rack of lamb, which will go nicely with a hearty red.  So, today I decided to slip it into a marinade. It is a little early to do this step, but since Valentine's day is a weekday it's just going to have to do.  I'll figure out the rest of dinner Monday night.

Here is the marinade recipe - adapted from an old Food & Wine recipe.

Port-Marinated Rack of Lamb

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup ruby port
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup whole-grain mustard
• 2 Tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1 Tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarsely ground fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon mace, freshly ground if possible
• 1 Tablespoon shallots, minced
• 2 racks of lamb, chine bones removed and frenched
• Kosher salt & freshly ground pepper

Preparation

In a large glass baking dish, combine all ingredients except the lamb and  kosher salt and last bit of freshly ground black pepper.  Add the lamb and turn to coat.  Let stand at room temperature for 40 minutes.  You can leave it in the marinade and refrigerate if you want to make this ahead.  Bring marinated meat to room temperature before proceeding.

Meanwhile, light a grill or preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Drain the lamb and scrape off the marinade.  Season the racks with kosher salt and pepper.  Grill over a medium-hot fire for 10 to 15 minutes, turning often, until an instant-read thermometer registers 130 degrees for medium rare.  Alternatively, heat a large, ovenproof skillet and sear the lamb over moderately high heat until browned on both sides, 5 to 6 minutes total.  Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast the lamb for 12 minutes for medium rare.

Transfer the lamb to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes.  Cut the lamb between the bones into chops, arrange 3-4 chops on each plate and serve.

I think I might start this feast with roasted heads of garlic and crusty bread.  Mmmm.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Chorizo and Baby Bella Baked Pasta

Every once in awhile it's nice to make a one-pot meal.  Life gets a little busy and throwing everything in one dish and popping it into the oven is great.  This technically classifies as a good old casserole, but it's a darn sight tastier than tuna casserole - no offense to those of you who think that's the bee's knees.  While you can pair it with a salad (a nice arugula with a lemon vinaigrette would be lovely), that would be a bonus and not essential in my book.  This originally came from a 1992 Bon Appetit recipe.

Chorizo and Baby Bella Baked Pasta

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 12 ounces onions, chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 8 ounces baby portobello mushrooms, quartered
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika (you can use sweet or hot, but smoked is preferable)
• 1 pinch cayenne (or more if you want it really spicy)
• 15 ounces canned diced tomatoes
• 1 large green bell pepper, diced
• 3 cups low salt chicken broth
• 1/2 cup white wine (see below)
• 12 ounces chorizo - the fresh variety, not the cured
• 12 ounces dried angel hair or spaghetti pasta (if you can, get pre-cut in small pieces)
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, minced

If you prefer a vegetarian option - there is a good soy chorizo available at Trader Joe's and you can easily substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Heat olive oil in heavy deep 12" skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onions and garlic and cook until tender, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes.  Add mushrooms and green pepper and sauté 4 minutes.  Add paprika and cayenne and stir until just fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add chorizo and sauté 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and sauté another 2 minutes.  Add chicken broth and wine and bring mixture to simmer.  If you have whole pasta, break pasta in half and add to pan otherwise, just add pasta pieces to pan.  Cook until the pasta is tender, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes.  Set pan in oven and bake until all liquid is absorbed and pasta is crusty, about 25 minutes.  Sprinkle generously with parsley and freshly cracked black pepper.

We tend to drink the rest of the white wine we used in the recipe with this.  The most widely recommended white wines with spicy food are Reislings or a Grüner Vetliner.  One of our current favorite Grüner Vetliners is Höpler.