Gastronome

I love my pressure cooker. Skeptics believe that you can’t make anything tasty in it, because the pressure will break down any flavouring, but that’s not exactly true: like anything else, you have to use the pressure cooker for what it is best at, and modify the plan accordingly.

One of the things the pressure cooker is best at is risotto. I love risotto, but I don’t like the constant stirring. With the right proportions of rice to liquid, you can have your risotto cooked to perfection in 4 minutes (okay 10 if you include the initial and final fussing) and you don’t have to stir except at the very end.
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No one in our family was particularly attached to having a turkey this year so I pulled together a great birdless meal that was easy to execute and, if I do say so myself, totally satisfying to eat!

Salmon Crostini with Mustard Dill Sauce (from sfgate)
French Green Beans with Garlic Butter
Vegetarian Stuffing
Cranberry Citrus Relish (from meriko)
Potatoes Boulangere (from Gordon Ramsey’s F-Word)
Prime Rib With Mint Chimichurri
Wheat and Butter Pop-overs

The potatoes were the best surprise: all the flavorful joy of a layered augratin dish without the fatty cream.

I have a new cast iron ‘cocotte’ dutch oven. I blame the lack of insulation in my 1930’s era house: it encourages one to want to make long-braised stews just to keep the oven going all day.

It being the weekend, I wanted to improvise a bit and putter. I had the seed of a recipe based on about five cookbooks: First, you marinate everything the night before. In the morning, you start with some bacon, render the fat, pull it out, brown some beef, pull that out, glaze some kind of mirepoix, pull that out, go back to the meat and braise it half the time in your cooker, add the mirepoix back, and wait…

So here is what I actually did, which isn’t exactly like any of my recipes but has the parts I liked best from all of them. It’s sort of a variation on beef bourgignon.
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I’ve been sick this week and jonesing for some nourishing hot soupy goodness. I picked up some leeks at the store yesterday, but was sadly unable to find Carrie’s infamous leek soup recipe online anywhere. Instead, I found Karine’s Gastronome post and an old Alton Brown recipe on the Food Network site and improvised from there. Voila! Serve with some warm sourdough or french bread for a super tasty fall dinner.

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Say you are dying to bake something and are craving something chocolately, something cakey… maybe a chocolate cookie? You inventory your ingredients and think you can do it, but have no specific recipe in mind. The perfect cookie in your head hasn’t been baked yet, and baking is a delicate and exacting science of carefuly tested proportions and measurements. You realize you don’t even have a measuring cup or a cookbook on hand. But you want This Cookie. You’re a rebel. You’ve baked cookies since you were knee-high. You can do this! You go for it.
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A few weeks ago, I was craving a potato salad but didn’t want anything with mayo, or sour cream, or yogurt. I had been playing around with vinegars so hit upon a slightly decadent but pretty straightforward rendition that you could call a “salad”. However, I originally served it as a side but recently made it for our annual Santa Cruz Shakespeare picnic outing.

(Oh and hi everyone, it has been ages since Meriko added me to Gastronome and I finally made some time to post…this is my first.)
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I’ve made paella on the stove, in my yard on the grill, and over a firepit while camping in the redwoods. I hope someday to make it in the most traditional of settings - over a beach bonfire, sand in my toes and salt in my hair. The most recent version? Over a fire in my yard on a sunny Saturday afternoon - Derrick & Melissa and I harvested the fruits of the Alemany Farmer’s market (not quite as direct as from the sea), and came back to the wabe to sabre champagne, shuck oysters, and cook up a big paella. My paella is more a method than a recipe; culled from Moro: the cookbook, Cesar, a long websurf, and the paellas I’ve tasted. Makes it perfect for a market-inpsired brunch!

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Y’all probably know about this already, but hey, well-written and beautiful food photography!

http://scentofgreenbananas.blogspot.com/

This Fourth of July, we were lucky enough to have our friends Kristen and Michael come for a visit. The fourth isn’t just Independence Day to them - it’s also their wedding anniversary. Obviously, a party was in order. The day cleared up just in time to fire up the grill around 2, and we shut it down right around 9; just in time to hike up the hill and see the fireworks. I wasn’t feeling too creative, so I pulled out a lot of the old favorites from the all-day firesessions out back at Hill Street. (Noone seemed to mind. If I make fire and don’t serve that peanut sauce, I get lynched.) As usual, the grilled figs were the hands-down favorite - even our hardened anti-fruit-with-seeds-eater succumbed to their charms. The menu’s below - I’ll post recipes through the week. (Anything in particular you want to see?) Kristen and Michael were exceptional prepchefs, and many thanks to Dallas who acted as my impromptu grill-sous all day. Extra bonus: All photos by the amazing Kristen Johansen. (Prep chef, charming guest, AND photographer? Come back anytime, darling.)

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I was particularly excited when Mike told me about the fourth installment of Mixology Monday, which focuses on apéritifs. I always enjoy my husband’s experiments with spirits, but I feel bad sometimes that my contribution to cocktail hour is generally little more than “thank you, honey.”

When MxMo 4 was announced, we both thought it presented a perfect opportunity for me to take a more active role by preparing a series of appetizers to pair with our drinks. After all, apéritifs are traditionally accompanied by a little plate of something savory to whet your appetite before a meal. We discussed it over the course of a few weeks, then decided on three pairings based upon the spirits we wanted to play with and ingredients which we thought would complement their flavors. Here’s what we came up with.
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