Hippy Food!

I'm getting a head start on my new years resolutions and beginning my attempt to eat much more balanced meals. I intend on gaining 10 lbs this year through strength training, it's going to require a very varied diet to give my body what it needs to build. I am going to start taking flax seed and super greens in the morning, I'm already eating oatmeal in the mornings. This is a fairly complete meal that I had today.

• Kombucha and Kombu in winter broth
  
• Yellow foot chantarelle and porcini risotto, chevre, parsley, winter broth
  
• Kale sauteed in olive oil with vinegar, garlic, winter broth
  
• Garbanzos with tomatoes and thyme, carrots, shallots, winter broth

*Winter Broth (Greens) variant
kombucha, carrots, parsnips, celerey root, chard, onion, celery, sage, parsley, thyme, nutritional yeast, lentils, olive oil

Yellow Foot Chanterelle Pasta

This is a modified version of Chanterelle Pasta from Chez Panisse Vegetables.
But it,
Replaces Leeks with Shallots
Replaces Chanterelles with Yellow Foot Mushrooms
Replaces Parsley with Chervil
Replaces Parmesean with Chevre
Added herbs to fresh pasta recipe
Extra Virgin Olive Oil replaces butter

I sorta changed everything in it...

the base of the sauce is broth and cream infused with porcini mushrooms,
which is mixed in with, sauteed diced shallots, sauteed yellow foot mushrooms, thyme, salt, pepper, and tossed into some fresh herb pasta. I garnished with chervil, and topped it off with some chevre. its like beef stroganauff except not gross.

I also roasted a Radicchio in the oven with some olive oil and dropped a few drops of vinegar on it before eating it. (not pictured)

a little pasta

Sun-dried tomatoes, basil, pine-nuts, spinach, lemon zest, béchamel, parmesan on bed of spinach fettuccine

goat-cheese and roasted garlic raviolis, tomato sauce

cook you up some dinner... a little pasta

listen to some music... a little rasta
(my all time favorite ALO lyrics)

Potatoes and Chanterelles . Red Onion and Red Wine Soup

I could finally use the kitchen again. I needed to cook the Chanterelles that I almost put into Sundays mac and cheese. I decided with the Greens recipe for Potatoes and Chanterelles Baked in Cream (p. 210) . There is a note that a Red Onion and Red Wine Soup with Tomatoes and Thyme would pair well with the potatoes. (p. 106) The recommended wine was Pinot Noir. But really, fuck wine. It cost more than the whole damn dinner, that's probably my fault... it tasted fine.

I've been a bit concerned with nutrition and balance lately, for my health in general. But mostly since I've started lifting weights again and I'm trying to get a bit more bulkier.

I added Rainbow Chard, sauteed with olive oil and garlic, pecans and raisins, tossed in a splash of sherry vinegar.

And I cooked some Basmati rice. I'm going to try to post photos now, my food is a little ugly but oh well. I'll go retro with it so the old posts might get new photos soon.

Gnocchi Field Trip

The kitchen is still completely ruined from the party. So I went out to eat. I felt like Italian, the closest is ernesto's but if you walk one more block you'll probably pass by Mescolanza without noticing it. Well I had a mental note of it, so this is where I wanted to go. It's over priced, and I thought our server acted too much like a butler, it's weird for me to judge service though. Free Port with dessert... no complaints.

I ended up having:

roasted polenta with assorted seasonal mushrooms

it's polenta, i love polenta. i wasn't impressed with the selection of mushrooms, and i'd rather have had it grilled. it was good still.

Gnocchi Spinaci, spinach dumpling, creamy tomato sauce

seems like they just mixed spinach into the dough and made a simple sauce with italian plum tomatoes, olive oil and parmesean. i got a full plate of them. they were yummy i ate every one.

anyway this was dual purpose order... i want to make some soon, i wanted a reminder of how it's supposed to be and portion size. i don't know if i can get the ingredients for what i want to do anyway. when i had gnocchi in napa they seared each one, which made it kinda crisp. but thats the same deal with polenta being roasted vs grilled... i just like a bit more crunch.

so the floral dinner i want to make is going to go like this.

• mesclun with variety of edible flowers, poppy seed dressing
  
• grilled gnocchi with a nasturtium butter sauce
• angel food cake with rosewater and jasamine scented white tea and lavender honey ice cream

get some nice bread of course. if i can't find nasturtium i could re-do that saffron butter sauce from greens.

the issue is that it's still too much milk fat and sugar... i have to cook maybe 2 healthier meals before letting myself have this one. just a thought. the salad would be good. i've never made gnocchi before... the sauce and mushrooms are things that i like but i don't know if it all combines... tea honey and cream, its very likely the ice cream will work.

its fun to experiment. i wonder if its going to be gross, i kinda want to invite guests.

Pot-luck

My roommate Linda threw a holiday party so I made 3 dishes. And 1 paper snow flake.

Firstly, I threw together some Coconut Green Curry Noodles, like the ones I had in Seattle. They were vegan... I wanted to make sure my peeps were taken care of.

• half can of green curry paste,
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 carrot sliced
• 1 orange bell sliced
• half a can of pineapples
• fermented black beans mashed with a little brown sugar
• oil infused with some red chilis and garlic
• toasted peanuts, chopped
• green onion
  
• 1 package of chow fun sized noodles

Second, I wanted to make a house favorite. Mac and Cheese. It was penne, a nice gorg cut with parm and oregon white truffles.

Last, Mint Chip Ice Cream. Its my roommate Mike's machine. So attempt number 2 was successful, I learned that putting in a teaspoon of alcohol (i went with macallan) will keep the ice cream from getting too hard.

Quick Instructions:
De-leaf 3 bunches of mint and soak in 2 cups half and half heated to before boiling,
let stand 30 mins, then bring back to just before boiling and steep another 15 minutes. strain the infused cream, mix 2/3 cup of sugar and 1 cup of cream until it all comes together. slowly mix cream into 6 beaten egg yolks, then heat and whisk until the cream coats the back of a spoon. let cool. stick it in an ice cream maker as directed. add chocolate chips. tsp. whiskey.

There was a lot of great food at our house tonight, we some how managed to fit like 10 cooks in the kitchen. Fun.

Not the most interesting blog... pot luck menus are so pot luck you know.

I'm going to whip up something floral soon, it's going to be hit or miss i'm sure. we are approaching the dead of winter and of course i want some flowers... i'm weird. but i gotta cut back on all this heavy food.

Manzanita

My first restaurant "review" blog will be of this absolutely wonderful vegan macrobiotic place: Manzanita which is at 40th and Linden in Emeryville. It's not new ,it's been around for 30 years.

It was the celebration of my friend Shivani's birthday, she works here.

The food was great, flavorful, balanced. This is the definition of a solid meal. I think Macrobiotics is probably the way to go... although I don't really know a thing about macrobiotics. Everyone at the restaurant had a very healthy glow to them. The menu changes every day, and is always fixed. I so dig the style.

In addition to the menu below, Shivani made vegan chocolate and carrots cakes that were beautifully decorated with walnuts, flowers, pomegranate, and one frosted mini wheat.

Saturday Dinner
December 13th, 2008

In the Kitchen: Tienzen
In the Dining Room: Carla

Full Meal ... $13.75
Moderate Meal ... $11.75

Choice between: The Varietal Salad and Lemon-Mustard Dressing
or Squash-Kombu Miso Soup

Mixed Grain Brown Rice
Garbanzo Bean w/ Onion, Garlic, & Dulse
Baked Turnip, Carrot, Beet, & Cabbage w/ Tahini, Sage, & Thyme
Steamed Kale w/ Cashew, Pumpkin, Parsley, & Cilantro Sauce

I think it's time to re-evaluate my diet...

"Cali-Mex"

I had a craving for some flavors south of the border. At most "Tex-Mex" restaurants you get some entree, rice, beans, salad all put onto one plate. I decided to mimic the same thing, except put a little California Love into it. The resulting menu is as follows, but the recipes will help you imagine the food much better.

• Rice, seasoned with black beans
  
• Black Beans, with onions, garlic, herbs, sherry
• Curtido with white wine vinegar and fresh herbs
• Roasted Pepper, Tomato, and Queso Blanco Quesidillas
• Pineapple Aqua Fresca
• Mexican Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

Rice,
2 cups basmati rice
* the left over bean juice from a can of black beans
2 sprigs thyme, leaves only
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tomato diced
1 tbsp. truffle butter
cayenne, new mexico red chili powder

mixed and cooked in a rice cooker.

Black beans,
1 can of black beans
1/2 onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 roasted Serrano pepper
marjoram, thyme, oregano, bay leaf
dry cooking sherry

reserve liquid from can of black beans.
combine 1 can of black beans to 2 cans of water, bring to boil. simmer 1 hour.
add the rest of the ingredients, bring to boil and simmer an additional hour.

Curtido, this is like a coleslaw/sourkrout type dish, more of a topping.

1 head cabbage
1 sweet white onion thinly sliced
2 carrots shredded
thyme, marjoram, oregano
1 tsp. new mexico red chili powder
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
salt

chop cabbage into rough strips, place in bowl of boiling water for 1 minute, then drain.
mix together the rest of the ingredients. fridge for a few hours,

Quesidillas,
slow roast the tomatoes with cumin, marjoram, oregano, thyme, salt, new mexico red chili powde, olive oil at 250 degrees for 2 hours, flipping once. remove skins, dice and set aside.

roast poblano peppers, remove skin and de-seed. cut into small strips. set aside.

crumble queso blanco.

use flour tortillas and cook the quesidilla in truffle butter.

eat topped with the curtido (see above).

Pineapple Aqua Fresca
note: I sneakily watched the owner of a carribean restaurant make this while waiting for a breakfast burrito. :)

1 can pineapple chunks in syrup
1 can crushed pineapple in juice
1/2 cup of sugar turned into simple syrup (or use pineapple syrup)
water
blend up the mixture a bit and serve over ice

Mexican Hot Chocolate Ice Cream
1 slab of mexican hot chocolate
1 cup of half and half
1 cup cream
3 egg yolks

heat half and half and melt the mexican hot chocolate into it
remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of cream
slowly mix into the 3 egg yolks already beaten
let sit at room temperature then cool in fridge
mix 1 tsp of vanilla extract
make in ice cream maker as directed

This entire dinner cost less than $25 and serves like 4. with lots of left over ingredients... I'm a little proud of this one. That was fun. Left over burritos!

Wild Mushroom Risotto

A risotto as wild as my trip to Seattle. Needs work. But I like the idea of it.

I came home from a day trip to Seattle with a pound of "Fresh Local Chanterelle Mushrooms" at $8.99/lb. I am a fan of the Chantarelle, and honestly don't like mushrooms in general, so I am always excited about finding them. (I wonder what it feels like running into them in the woods!)

I asked the the guy working the produce stand if there's a difference from the ones I get down south in SF. He said he did not know. He also mentioned that they were at the end of the season.

So, after my long sleep my first thought was what I would be eating for dinner. My mushies of course. What to do... well I remember a recipe with greens in a ravioli, but I just had agnolotti last night and didn't want that. I can do risotto, same flavors, different spin.

I head over to the Ferry Building to get ingredients and go straight to the mushroom store. I ask the lady the same question regarding the Chanterelles... she is sooo knowledgeable. The differences are the following: Chantarelles come into season from north to south with the first rains. The rain is much lighter in the north so it accounts for smaller, yet drier, mushrooms. As the rain goes south it is more heavy and will yield larger wetter mushrooms. But flavor is pretty much the same, the drier ones are probably a bit stronger.

Over in the case is a bunch of truffles, I wanted to buy some at Pike's but the truffle store was sold out, how bogus is that? I'm talking to like the mushroom guru right now so I just gotta pick her brain some more. What's the difference between the Oregon White and the Italian Truffle?

They're NOTHING alike.

Different variety. She shoves a jar of the Italian ones into my nose.

WOW!

Then she lets me smell the Oregon ones. The oregon truffles have a more chemically smell in comparison. I ask, "you gotta use these like immediately right?" And the answer is. Within a week but after a week you can make truffle butter and fridge it than freeze it and have it for a long time. A little light bulb icon just appeared over my head.

"What do you think about using truffle butter in a Chanterelle Risotto?"
"Excellent."

Oregon Truffles $12.50 OZ.
Italian Truffles $312.50 OZ.

Are Oregon Truffles a gastronomical equivalent to brown mexi-brick weed? Did I just buy some gateway drugs?

Next stop, Escarole. I walked over to the farm fresh store and picked up what I believed to be Escarole. It's been awhile. I asked the lady working the store and she goes through a book says what I am holding isn't it. (I swear at this point I almost just grabbed a Raddachio instead... maybe i should have) But she goes gets help and finally tells me my guess was right all along. I grab a little thyme too.

I head over to Cowgirl Creamery and grab a number. I wanted to get some Oregonzola but they were out so I ended up getting just a bit of Stichelton. That shit is strong! I only got a little bit. planning on cutting it with parm.

And that completes my risotto, almost.

* Truffle Butter, cream finely minced truffles 1 oz to 1 lb butter (the fucking irony kills me)

2 cups risotto rice (your choice)
1 lb Chanterelle diced, cooked golden in 2 tbsp. Truffle Butter
1 Head Escarole cut into thick strips
2 Shallots minced
5 cups broth, I used no-chicken, soaked a bunch of porcini mushrooms, a bay leaf, and a few sprigs of thyme.
1/2 cup of Champagne
1/4 lb Stitchelton
Parmesan
Salt, Pepper
touch of white wine vinegar

So the idea here is to use very little of everything. All the flavors are quite delicate. But my ingredients are quite poor in quality as far as the champagne and truffles go.

"I can't get enough, I want to eat you up, have you for dinner left overs for lunch."

Seriously. I'm thinking about getting a baguette at acme and bringing a small amount of truffle butter with me. I like apple juice too.

Roasted Beets. Green Garlic Ravioli. Chocolate Cake

I was walking out of brunch at the Blarney Stone, I personally wanted to stay home and make pancakes but my roommate insisted on going out. I had the standard veggie omelet and an Irish Coffee. The store next door had young garlic, and I immediately got excited and bought 6 of them remembering a recipe with young garlic and potatoes in a ravioli; which is perfect since I've wanted ravioli's in broth all week. Unfortunately, I only bought enough for half a recipe, which turned out to be about 12 large-ish raviolis.

I went out looking for new potatoes, the yellow fingerlings or the french pink potatoes looked like good choices but I didn't want a whole bag. Organic gold potatoes were on sale so I chose those.

I felt like a salad, so I thought some roasted beets tossed in some mesclun with some chopped apples in a vinaigrette would be fine. And that's what I did.

The ravioli's were easy, I put about a 1/4 cup of whole wheat (3/4 all-purpose) into a 1 egg pasta recipe. Chopped and stewed the young garlic, Alice tells you which parts of the garlic to take to adjust your flavor accordingly... I really don't have that fine of a palate. I guessed. Chop them uniformly and cook until done in some butter. Boil the potatoes. Then puree them together adding salt and pepper to taste. Roll out the pasta, fill, cut, and drop in boiling water.

Chocolate cake was a last minute add, and also a moderate disaster. I didn't have any of the right ingredients. I had only 2 eggs instead of 3, so I chucked out 1/3 of the dry mix I had made. I didn't have unsweetened chocolate, just semi. And I didn't have buttermilk, just some left over cream that I forgot to add,(then added last minute directly into the cake pan)... while waiting for the cake to cool, I got impatient and made some frosting. Well the cake still wasn't that cool when I started to frost it... melt-age. If there was a way to fuck up this cake, I did it. I got a theory with working with this much freaking butter and sugar though, it's almost impossible for it to suck, so don't trip on it.

More roommates just happen to show up when I finished so I had to ration things out a bit more scarcely. I did not make my own broth, I got lazy and used a carton of no-chicken broth. Wish I had just made my own, would've been better and cheaper. I think it was all decent in the end.

Fettuccine and Saffron Butter with Spinach and Roasted Peppers

This is taken directly from The Greens Cookbook, p. 166

It's saffron, shallots, marjoram, parsley, lemon peel, and cayenne creamed into butter and later melted into sauteed red onions, garlic, sliced roasted red and yellow bells and spinach. It's then tossed with fresh fettuccine and toasted pine nuts. Topped off with some Parmesan and pepper.

This dish has a lot going on in it, there are a ton of flavors, but the saffron definitely stands out, perhaps a bit too much to me. I'd use less next time. And a nice slice of bread would've been so money, especially to sop up some of that butter sauce.

Greens is my favorite restaurant in the city, right now. I like it. Given the ingredients and skill required to perform the dishes they do, it really isn't that pricey either.

This particular recipe cost about $15 in ingredients plus roughly 2.5 hours of cooking... I'm still slow with a knife and what not.

The number of servings is two to four. I would guess the dish is about $15 for one serving, but it's going to be done correctly with better ingredients.

Brie and Poached Pears on Focaccia w/Lavender Lemonade

I had a craving after lunch for a Brie and poached pear sandwich after walking by crossroads today. I had some pizza dough left over from the yam pizza still in the freezer, so I defrosted that and baked it topped with salt, rosemary, and lavender. While poaching the pears, it hit me, why not add more lemons, steep some lavender, and make lemonade! It was great. I also put some mint leaves into the sandwich which ended up complimenting with the flavor of the rye in the bread.

1 Foccacia bread (50% rye), salt, lavender, rosemary
2 Pears poached in
4 cups water
1.25 cups sugar
1 zest of a lemon
1 juice of a lemon
Remove pears and slice

turn off heat on poaching solution and add:
juice of 3 lemons
5 sprigs of lavender

let the lavender steep for about 10 minutes or so.

Pour over ice and add soda water.

To make the sandwich spread a nice layer of brie over the bread.
layer the sliced pears, top some mint on top.

I was pretty happy with the results, will repeat.