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.

McMenamin’s Edgefield

I spent last night at the Edgefield, a McMenamin’s complex in Troutdale, Oregon.

And by complex I mean an estate covered with pub/restaurants and teeny hidden bars and a “spa” heated mineral pool, with a huge lodge style hotel in the center. It’s often described as an adult theme park because their liquor license covers the whole property, so you can wander from bar to bar (to poolroom to soaking pool) with drink in hand, gorging yourself on local beers, semi-local food, and occasionally creative cocktails.

I had a delectable artisanal cheese platter during happy hour at the Black Rabbit bar in the lodge, and that was the only interesting eating experience. (The mesquite salmon Caesar at the Power Station pub was inoffensively blah.) That’s ok, we were there to get drunk, and we did – slowly. They mix their drinks extra-weak, which by my 8th or 9th seemed like a pretty smart idea.

The beer is McMenamin’s, which translates to decent but nothing standout in the modern world of microbrews and exotic beers. Some of the liquor was from the McMenamin’s distiller, and insofar as I could taste the liquor itself, it also seemed… fine.

I had two standout cocktails: The Bourbon Furnace, made up of bourbon, hot apple cider, honey, and a cinnamon stick. They managed to make this barely sweet and very bourbon-licious, in spite of not being terribly strong. The other was the Screwhound, a mix of a Greyhound (grapefruit + vodka) and Screwdriver (orange + vodka). What made this amazing? All the juice was fresh-squeezed in front of me right into the mixer.

My conclusion? Like most McMenamin’s, go for the company, and consume the food and drink while you’re there. It’s nothing to write home about.

Eggplant Tomato Rigatoni

We still had half an eggplant leftover from the Ratatouille, so last night I decided to try out a RealSimple recipe for Rigatoni with Sautéed Eggplant and Tomato (key ingredients are in the title plus fresh mint) with a side of A’s delicious Caesar salad and some crunchy garlic bread. With help, it took about 35 minutes of continuous activity. Alone, I would have prepped the pasta ingredients, then gotten the bread all the way to the baking stage before starting to cook anything else.

Helpful additional notes: I followed RealSimple’s recipe for crispy garlic bread rather than use my old technique (baking minced garlic and butter straight into the bread), and really liked it. Infusing olive oil with garlic then brushing it on bread was definitely a better way to get the flavor thoroughly distributed. I only wish I’d cut the bread so it had more surface area for better oil saturation.

Things I would or did change: We only had half an eggplant, and I’m glad I didn’t use more. It would have been overwhelming. I also added the parmesan in the recipe to the whole pasta bowl when I mixed in the mint and then offered more parmesan for garnish, which helped the flavor/texture. The texture would have been even better had I peeled the eggplant. I also would have used fresh basil instead of fresh mint. Yes, they’re very different flavors, but I think that the basil would have complemented the vegetables better. And, finally, it might have benefited from either some tomato paste or canned crushed tomatoes to make the sauce just a little bit more saucy.

Review: Eh. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t overwhelmingly delicious. (Except A’s Caesar. He makes a mean Caesar. Some time I’ll put the recipe up here.) It was an easy way to use up the rest of the eggplant and have leftovers.

Would I make it again? If I had some ingredients lying around and was feeling lazy, probably. Wouldn’t go out of my way for it though.