Mushroom+Polenta

Last night we tried out a recipe for creamy polenta w/ mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes, adapted from America’s Test Kitchen. Next time I’d add a little something to make it pop – more salt, more pepper, and something hot – but it worked well as a simple, healthy, easy dinner.

Ingredients for the topping:

  • 2lbs crimini mushrooms, halved or quartered
  • 1 onion, thinly sliced
  • olive oil
  • 0.25oz dried porcini mushrooms minced (these are expensive so I skipped ’em, but the wild mushroom flavor definitely suffered for it)
  • 1 tsp minced fresh rosemary (I would increase this next time)
  • salt & black pepper
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 12oz baby spinach
  • 12oz cherry tomatoes, halved

Ingredients for the polenta:

  • 4 cups water
  • salt & black pepper
  • 1 cup coarsely ground cornmeal
  • 1/2 cup parmesan + extra for topping
  • 1 TBSP unsalted butter cut into small chunks

Directions for the topping:

  • Put mushrooms, onion, olive oil, rosemary, and 1/4 tsp salt in a cast iron saucepan or Dutch oven. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, 10-12 mins.
  • Uncover, increase heat, and cook until vegetables are browned, 4-6 mins.
  • Stir in garlic, cook until fragrant, ~30 seconds.
  • Add spinach one handful at a time and cook until wilted, 3-5 mins.
  • Stir in tomatoes and cook until warmed. Salt & pepper to taste, set aside and keep warm.

Directions for the polenta:

  • Bring water + 1/2 tsp salt to boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Slowly add cornmeal, whisking to prevent clumping.
  • Bring cornmeal + water to a simmer, stirring constantly, then reduce heat to low. Cover and cook, stirring frequently and making sure to scrap the sides of the pan, until polenta is smooth and thickish, 10-15 mins.
  • Once you’ve achieved your desired texture, take it off the heat and vigorously stir in the butter and parmesan. Salt & pepper to taste.

Put some polenta in a bowl, put some veggies on top, and smother it in more parmesan and the hot sauce of choice.

Nice Salad

Tonight we concocted a salad bastardization, part chef’s salad, part salad Niçoise, mostly whatever we felt like throwing in. I’m calling it a Nice Salad because we went with a Niçoise dressing. Pardon the icky photo, I forgot to snap it until we’d tossed the salad and consumed most of it.

Ingredients:

  • Head of Romaine
  • 3 Hard boiled eggs
  • Can of solid white tuna
  • Broccoli
  • Kalamata olives
  • Red onion
  • Parmesan
  • Capers

Dressing:

  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 2 tsp mustard
  • 2 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 anchovy fillets, chopped to an almost-paste
  • 5-6 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 6 tbsp olive oil

Mostly the instructions are just wash, chop, mix, etc. However, I do highly recommend the following procedure for hard boiling eggs to keep them from overcooking and smelling sulfuric:

  1. Start with refrigerated eggs, and put them in a pot filled with cold water to about 1″ above the eggs. (Yes, cold and cold. The key is to avoid overcooking.)
  2. Cover the pot and bring to a boil on high.
  3. When it starts to boil, turn the heat off, but leave the pot covered and on the stove. Set a timer for 10-15mins.
  4. When the timer goes off, put the eggs in a bowl and and run cold water over them until they’re cool enough to peel. This will stop them from cooking right away.

Bananas Foster

Dessert on Cajun/Creole night was the tooth-decayingly delicious Bananas Foster. Sadly, I didn’t nab my cell in time to get a picture of the flames climbing all the way to the ceiling, but it was spectacular.

The basics: Bananas, butter, brown sugar, banana liqueur, and rum. Carmelize the brown sugar in the butter into a creamy paste (be patient, this takes a while), stir in banana liqueur, stir in bananas, add the (warmed) rum, and light it all on fire. We politely ignored Taggart’s suggestions for fancy presentation in the dining room and just gathered everyone around the stove while our skilled friend Greg rocked the flambé, then served the mixture over vanilla ice cream.

Changes: We doubled the recipe to make it go around, but actually reduced the amount of banana liqueur to 1oz. The stuff is insanely strong (bonus points for the surprisingly drinkable shots Greg made us with it while we were cooking). Also, be sure to use very high proof rum to get it to light on fire. A cheap 151 will do just fine.
Would I make it again: My teeth and stomach say NO!, but my tongue says HELL YES.

Creole Sides

As you can probably tell, last Sunday was Cajun/Creole night, courtesy of Chuck Taggart’s fantastic Gumbo Pages. I was responsible for starch & vegetable, starting with:

Dirty Rice
The recipe starts with a shortcut for homemade chicken stock. You then pan fry uncooked converted rice in a whole lot of butter, add celery, onion, green bell pepper, garlic, and parsley, and cook the whole mixture in the broth. Estimated total time about 2 hours including simmering chicken parts in water for the “stock.”

Changes: I got lazy and just bought a pack of gizzards for the pieces for the broth, which turned out fine.
Would I make it again: Yes- YUM. I’d probably try their suggestion of cooking a whole chicken as the main dish and using the discarded parts to make the “stock.”

The “healthy” side was a Green Bean & Artichoke Casserole
This features green beans and artichoke hearts mixed with onion and garlic, smothered in bread crumbs and parmesan, and baked to delicious.

Changes: I used frozen everything due to a rotten bean snafu at the produce stand, and I would definitely like to try it again with fresh veggies. Also, the recipe calls for Italian bread crumbs and I just bought plain ol’ bread crumbs and added a little thyme. Worked just fine.
Would I make it again: It was a tasty enough dish and went great with gumbo, but I couldn’t see bothering with it in any other context. I like to experience my veggies a little more.

Gumbo

This was a real project over the weekend.  I got some of the ideas from gumbopages.com.

Ingredients

  • Shrimp (2 lb) head on.  You have to go to an asian grocery to get head on shrimp, generally.
  • A whole chicken
  • 2 lb chicken parts
  • 1 lb andouille sausage
  • 2 lb okra
  • 8 stalks celery
  • 4 carrots
  • 2 large onions
  • 3 green bell peppers
  • one bunch green onions
  • several sprigs of fresh thyme
  • one bunch parsley
  • whole pepper corns
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 9 quarts water
  • white pepper
  • ground thyme
  • ground oregano
  • ground black pepper
  • cayenne
  • sweet paprika
  1. Start by making a stock.  This is a special stock for gumbo, but you can use whatever stock making techniques you like.  Below is what I like to do.
  2. Butcher the whole chicken, saving everything except the skin.  Chop one onion, 4 stalks of celery and the carrots into large chunks.
  3. Brown the chicken and the vegetables in the bottom of you stock pot for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly.
  4. Add the water, and let it come to a boil, reduce it to a simmer.
  5. Add the thyme and some whole peppercorns, and salt, to taste.
  6. Let the stock simmer for 4 hours, skimming fat from the top every 30 minutes or so.
  7. Peel the heads and skin from the shrimp.  Save the shrimp for later and add the heads and skin to the stock.
  8. Let it simmer for another 30-45 minutes.
  9. Strain the stock so that it is just the liquid.  I refrigerated the stock overnight to allow the fat separate, and then skimmed the fat from the top.  Any other method to remove fat from stock is also fine.
  10. If the stock has been refrigerated, begin reheating it, otherwise, skip to the next step.
  11. Make a roux by melting the butter in the oil in a cast iron skillet and adding flour steadily until all of the flour is in the cast iron.  Cook the roux on medium-high heat stirring constantly until the rue is dark brown, about 15 minutes.
  12. Finely chop the remaining onions and celery, green peppers, garlic, and green onions.  Add the vegetables to the roux as it is finishing cooking to cool down the roux and the brown the vegetables.
  13. Cook the vegetables in the roux for another 10 minutes, continuing to stir constantly.
  14. Add the vegetables and roux to the stock.  Brown the chicken parts (cut into medium sized cubes) after rubbing them with a spice mixture of your liking (I used the ones listed above) in the oven.
  15. Brown the andouille sausage in a cast iron skillet.
  16. Add the chicken and sausage to the stock as well as the parsley, finely chopped, and the spice you would like to have in it.
  17. Let the gumbo simmer for about 2 hours.
  18. Chop the okra horizontally, leaving the seeds in tack.  Add the okra to the gumbo.
  19. Let the gumbo simmer for another 30-60 minutes.  The okra should be simmered until it has lost all stringiness.  You should notice your gumbo thickening as the okra softens.
  20. Add the shrimp and continue to simmer until the shrimp are cooked (about 15 minutes) and remove from heat.
  21. Serve with rice.

Shrimp & Snow Pea Stir Fry

asian stir fry shrimp snow pea Another simple stir fry, and this time I remembered to take a photo before it was devoured. This time we went for a Chinese-ish Shrimp & Snow Pea Stir Fry with rice from Cooking Light. Main ingredients include shrimp, snow peas, red bell pepper, red onion, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds.

Things I would or did change: I went with fresh ginger & garlic over bottled, and was too lazy to toast the sesame seeds (you stir fry everything in sesame oil, so it still tasted fine). It could have used a little more kick, so I might go with more garlic & ginger and/or a spicy element to the sauce.

Would I make this again: Sure, when I’m looking for a simple, healthy stir fry with a little fish. I happen to LOVE snow peas and shrimp, and the color was nice, but the flavor left a little to be desired. It was fine, just not… Exciting. Definitely needed a dump of Sriracha in the end.

Gold Dust Meridian

One of my favorite Hawthorne area bars is Gold Dust Meridian. I brought a visiting friend there last night to enjoy the relatively late happy hour (until 8pm, mostly food oriented) and fancy cocktails.

They feature a variety of champagne concoctions that range from foofy (fresh strawberry) to bitter and complex. Their “mixology” – aka deliciously bougie – cocktails are also pretty impressive. I enjoyed a berry bourbon hot toddy last night that was quite subtle, and I’ve had a killer fancy mojito there in the past. Of course they also have their fair share of totally made-up and intriguing creations.

The happy hour food menu is also pretty decent, although the full price one isn’t much bang for your buck. Favorites include the bar olives (that come with fruits and nuts), artisan cheese plate, “trio” (sandwich/soup/salad), garlic artichoke dip… Standard northwest barestaurant fare.

Spicy Thai Stir Fry

Asian food is delicious vegan. We had a dinner guest tonight who’s for all intents and purposes temporarily vegan, so I found this recipe for a Spicy Thai stir fry with tofu, red bell pepper, and spinach. Flavor was provided by garlic, ginger, green onions, fresh basil, soy sauce, fresh lime juice, and crushed red pepper. With chopping help it took only about 20/25 minutes.

Helpful additional notes: It’s easy to crush whole peanuts by keeping them in a plastic bag and just banging away on them (on top of the counter) with the bottom of a mason jar. Seriously. Go wild.

Things I would or did change: Nothing to the core recipe at all. I made rice to go with it and I had an eater who’s allergic to peanuts, so I just crushed them up and put them out as a condiment, along with lime wedges and Sriracha. (I made it decently spicy but it’s nice to be able to heat it up as desired.) Also, I cooked it too long due to a rice snafu. Don’t do that – it deserved to be crispier.

Would I make this again: Most definitely. Affordable but still delicious ingredients and mostly healthy, other than frying the veggies in 1/3 cup of olive oil.

Steak Au Poivre

Another one adapted from NYT Cookbook.  This is a great recipe for second tier cuts of steak, like sirloin.

Ingredients

  • Steaks
  • Half a lemon
  • 2 tablespoons of butter
  • Whole peppercorns
  • Worcestershire Sauce
  • Tabasco
  • Brown liquor (preferably high proof)
  1. Put a few peppercorns on each side of each steak and tenderize.
  2. Put a pinch of salt in the bottom of a cast iron skillet and heat the skillet until the salt starts to brown.
  3. Add the steaks, and cook until the steaks have mostly reached your desired temperature.
  4. Remove the steaks.
  5. Turn the heat off of the skill and scrap the bottom of the skillet to separate the browned pieces of steak from the bottom of the skillet.
  6. When the skillet is cool enough to not burn the butter, add it.
  7. When the butter has melted, add the lemon, Tabasco and Worcester sauce.  Briefly let the sauce reduce.
  8. Add the steaks back into the skillet.
  9. Pour the brown liquor over the steaks.
  10. Light it on fire.

Caesar Salad

This is adapted from the New York Times Cook Book.  Adding the egg in at the end, after the lettuce, giving the dressing a less creamy consistency, which some people prefer.

Ingredients

  • Romaine Lettuce
  • One Clove Garlic
  • Worcester sauce
  • Tabasco
  • Mustard
  • One egg
  • Parmesan
  • Olive Oil
  • Half a lemon
  • Croutons
  • Anchovies
  • Pepper
  1. Cut a clove of garlic in half.  Rub the inside of your salad bowl with the raw end of the garlic to coat the bowl.
  2. Juice the half lemon into the bowl.
  3. Add an equivalent amount of olive oil (so there are equal parts lemon juice and olive oil.
  4. Add most of your grated Parmesan, a healthy table spoon of mustard (horseradish can be substituted as well).
  5. Add a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, and a few drops of Tabasco, and pepper to taste.
  6. Thinly slice the anchovies and add them to the bowl.
  7. Add the raw egg.  The NYT Cookbook suggests boiling it for a minute so it isn’t raw.  I don’t think this is necessary.
  8. Mix well by hand.
  9. Add the lettuce and croutons, and toss.
  10. Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan on top of the tossed salad for presentation

This is a pretty vague recipe because it can be wildly altered.  Caesar Salad means different things to different people.