Cooking

Risotto made with Sav Blanc, bone broth, crimini mushrooms, onions, late-added pre-baked pumpkin, and crispy sage leaves. And a salad of bitter red lettuce, pomegranate, persimmon.

For an improvised meal: I boiled a mix of potatoes, celery root, and parsnips (light on the potatoes). In parallel, I sauteed lots of leeks with some fresh red peppers, shallots, and spices I think of as Moroccan (turmeric, paprika, cumin, coriander, black pepper): I added some good local ground lamb and continued to cook. Then I drained fat out of the lamb and vegetables, topped them with mashed root vegetables and butter in the same cast iron skillet, grated a soft mild sheep’s milk cheese over the top, and baked until the cheese was melted. ...

Alas, not a great success, but okay: I’ve cooked fish in foil once before, and tried something along those lines again at a friend’s potluck. I even got to make this version twice in one night, as we expected a late dinner guest. The first time through: Preheated the oven to 400 Laid out about 3/4 pound of cod on a double-size piece of foil (one layer of cod) Covered it with two sliced shallots, rough-sliced ginger root, sliced chanterelles (my favorite mushroom), pats of clarified butter, and about 1 Tbsp of white miso Folded over the foil and crimped it together, like a large empanada… Baked it for about 25 minutes Sprinkled yuzu (a japanese citrus) juice over it and let it rest 10 minutes It smelled delicious, and the fish was pretty good– but the shallots and especially ginger were still fairly raw and strong, and it wasn’t salty enough (and it sat in a pool of butter I drained). I’d give it a C. ...

Last weekend I had friends over for a nice dinner: a delicious whole leg of lamb (from a local farm, slaughtered and butchered by a friend just a few days before), a salad of wild arugula + homemade ricotta + roasted yellow nectarines, roasted eggplant with dry-farmed tomatoes and preserved lemon, and a platter of five kinds of figs. This is the story of the food: The lamb was from Amador Grazers (all grass fed, no antibiotics or growth hormones). If you’re not squeamish about such things, you can see a photo of my friend slaughtering and butchering it here. ...

I have no photos (though maybe a fellow camper will dig one up). So I’ll just say: making grilled cheese over charcoal turns out well. Especially if you use three cheeses, good bread, heirloom tomatoes, and avocados, and brush the bread with huge amounts of melted butter and then grill until crisp.

Using nearly the same ingredients as Tuesday’s dinner, something simpler (about 20 minutes from start to finish, 2 pans) and still tasty: The sauce was a shallot and a huge pile of minced garlic (about half a head), sauteed in olive oil for maybe 5 minutes until golden brown, plus cherry tomatoes, a little chicken stock, olives, black pepper, and red pepper flakes, simmered for another 10+ minutes. The nearly-done bowtie pasta was then finished in the sauce for another 2 minutes. Plus parsley and haloumi. ...

I’d been craving kasha, that staple of russian jewish grandmothers everywhere, so I sat down and made it. A cup of buckwheat groats mixed with a beaten egg and toasted for a few minutes in a skilled until dry. Onion, salt, and pepper sauteed in oil. Chicken stock boiled in a heavy pan and then both of those added to it, and cooked covered over low heat for about 12 minutes, before adding in cooked bowtie pasta. Solid. ...

I should really turn my food-splurge impulses into cooking more often. I bought the most exciting version of everything I wanted without thinking about price (a BN Ranch grass-fed sirloin steak, local padrone peppers, blackberries, a nectarine, olives, a shallot)… and the total came to about $17. Not cheap, but inexpensive for a “special splurge on dinner”.

For a camping trip with a few friends, I decreed “no burgers, no sausages”, and a very loose theme of “Korean BBQ”. I don’t think I’d ever cooked Korean food before, but the general idea of marinated, grilled, thin-sliced meat and lots of banchan (side dishes, most of which could be made ahead of time) seemed feasible for camping, and a break from the ordinary. I bought a nice large marbled ribeye steak and sliced it thinly against the grain (following an online suggestion to pre-freeze it for an hour to aid with slicing thin helped): ...

What I ate for dinner: fresh mozzarella (not made by me), the first dry-farmed tomatoes I’d seen this season (sweet and intense), basil, olive oil, salt, pepper.

Last weekend I took a sausage-making class (hands-on practice, recipes, and helpful Q&A from the owners of Jablow’s Meats). I don’t have time to write much up, but it was fun, informative, and I especially like the sweet italian sausage we made (with plenty of garlic and toasted fennel seed): (yes, everyone photographs sausage being extruded out of the piston into pig intestine:) Hat tip to relatively new organizations Curiosity Atlas for organizing and Good Eggs for hosting. ...

For dinner: bread, cheese (Humboldt Fog and a Neals Yard cheese that wasn’t their cheddar), mixed greens with roasted peaches and radishes, and a bowl of figs. Followed by lentil soup based on the version I liked so much earlier this year, involving sweating the lentils, shallots sauteed in bacon fat, nora pepper, and this time a dried ancho pepper for a little extra kick. I did the “add a big bunch of spinach a few minutes before serving” thing again too: ...

I love the fresh-from-the-Bay-a-few-hundred-feet-away oysters at Tomales Bay Oyster farm in Marshall, about 6 miles North of Point Reyes (both the sweet Golden Nugget and the more briny regular Tomales Bay oysters). However, I realized I’ve never been a huge fan of Tabasco or soy sauce on oysters (too tart, too thin – I think I want something more buttery and spicy to balance out the brine). So as an experiment I made my own inspired-by-harissa sauce: dried ancho chiles from Tierra Farms (reconstituted in hot water for 10 minutes), pureed with olive oil, a few cloves of garlic, and a little toasted coriander seed. This turned out a thick, slightly spicy, mouth-coating paste that you could dab on the oysters. I declare it a success! ...

Between travel and work it hasn’t been a great few months for cooking. Trying to get back (on/off) the wagon, I went by Bi-Rite and picked up some sole and some newly-in-season vegetables and fruit. What can I make, while hungry, without a plan? Sole filet– should I bread it? Fry it? It’s so thin… hmm. I peeked in The New Best Recipe and took their suggestion on cooking style, which worked well– salt and pepper on both sides, let the filets sit 5 minutes, heat 1 Tbsp oil and butter together to high heat (butter alone would burn), bring it down to medium-high once the butter melts and saute the fish (3 minutes on the non-skin side, then about 2 minutes on the skin side, until it flakes apart under a toothpick). Then I browned half a Tbsp of butter in the pan as a sauce, along with some minced up salt-cured olives. This was excellent. ...

Hey, this was a more successful than usual “leftovers hash”, and only 20 minutes. (cue typical low-light cell phone photo:) Some good pancetta fried at low heat. A little water added to deglaze the pan and get the crusty bits off the bottom. A minced shallot sauteed in the fat. Then a few brussels sprouts I had (sliced thin), a coarsely chopped head of broccolini, and a few big pinches of white pepper, for variety. With the pan covered, fried/steamed on medium-low heat (stirring occasionally) for about 10 minutes. ...