No Plans for the Week

I need to pay attention to which blog I’m posting these things on…

Mom is in town for a few days before she travels down the Oregon/California coast. She will then be back for a 10 day visit. Given this week is going to be a little hectic, and I’m leaving town Friday, I didn’t menu plan or grocery shop this week. Last night we got Mr. Gyros for dinner. Even though I ordered the wrong thing (falafel instead of gyros), it was still delicious as always. But I am glad I’m not a vegetarian. Those gyros are so much better than falafel. People who don’t eat meat are really missing out.

Weekend Recap

I spent most of the weekend working on a presentation that I’m giving in a few weeks. By requiring me to turn in my slides 2 weeks in advance, they have ensured that I am well prepared for the talk. Despite my attempts to get things done in advance, however, I spent the majority of the last two days making power point slides. And re-watching Downton Abbey. I did have some time to cook though.

Friday I went out with some girlfriends, to say farewell to one friend who is leaving rainy Seattle for sunny Denver. I can’t say that I blame her, although Seattle is putting on its best show today in an attempt to convince her to stay. We went to Cantinetta, which was delicious. I’ve had a hard time finding a good Italian restaurant in Seattle, but this might be it. Homemade pasta is amazing, as were the nutella filled donut holes we had for dessert.

Saturday, I made meatloaf. Meatloaf never blows me away, and this was no different. I *love* meatloaf sandwiches though, so that was my main motivation for making this. I’m not sure that I’d make this one again, I missed the ketchup-y nature of my usual meatloaf recipe. And the mushroom gravy was unnecessary. Tasty, but unnecessary. The roasted vegetables (green beans, quartered red potatoes tossed with olive oil, salt and a little sugar roasted at 500 degrees for 20 minutes, then tossed with 1 Tbsp olive oil, 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 clove pressed garlic, a little salt, a little pepper and sliced radicchio) were delicious. I can’t find the meatloaf recipe right now, but unless you really like mushrooms and you don’t like meatloaf with ketchup and bacon (which I love and will likely be the basis for all future meatloaf adventures), you can probably skip it.

Sunday I went to an Oscar party, so ate lots of appetizer sized foods. Adam ate leftovers. I haven’t planned a menu for this week, since my mom is in town visiting. We’ll play it by ear, although tonight might be pizza night if I get home from work early enough to make the pizza dough.

Giant Salad

Adam went out last night, so I was on my own for dinner. This gave me an excuse to make a giant salad for dinner. It was delicious, but I should have only made a half recipe. We now have two large Pyrex dishes full of salad in our fridge.

Quinoa, Garbanzo and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing from Bon Appetit

It was delicious, easy, and would be great to take to a party/potluck. I add some grilled chicken too, because I’m not a vegetarian. I like meat.

Pork and Salmon

But not together…

Tuesday I felt like I got hit by a bus. I stayed home sick, but after spending all day on the couch, I was feeling useless so decided to go ahead and make dinner anyway. I typically do our menu planning on the weekend and make one grocery store run either Saturday (if I remember, because that is when they have free wine tasting at our grocery store!) or Sunday. I usually only plan 5 meals per week, to allow for unforeseen circumstances like spontaneous nights out, or as was the case this week, me being sick and not feeling like eating. I planned a full menu this week however, with lots of perishable veggies, so decided it would be best to cook. I think in my febrile delirium I thought this would be a good idea. In retrospect, Adam would have been much better able to make dinner. Ah well.

Tuesday night we had pork stir fry, from Cooks Illustrated. I love this magazine, because it explains why you do the things you do when cooking. I hate their website though, because they charge you $30 per year for internet access. Even if you already subscribe to the magazine! So you cannot have a link to the recipe (unless you subscribe). I cannot tell you if it was any good, because I am still congested and cannot actually taste anything. I’m having it for lunch today. If I can taste it, I will let you know. It’s easy to make, it just requires a lot of small bowls for prep, like any good stir-fry.

Sichuan Stir-Fried Pork in Garlic Sauce from Cooks Illustrated

For the pork:

12 oz. country style boneless pork ribs

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 c water

2 tsp rice wine

2 tsp corn starch

Cut the pork into 2 inch pieces after trimming excess fat, then cut each piece into 1/4 inch matchsticks. Mix water and baking soda and soak pork for 15 minutes. Rinse well, pat dry with paper towel. Combine rice wine and corn starch, add pork and toss to coat.

For the sauce:

1/2 c low sodium chicken broth

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp soy sauce

4 tsp Chinese black vinegar (or 2 tsp balsamic vinegar and 2 tsp rice vinegar)

1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 Tbsp rice wine

2 tsp ketchup

2 tsp fish sauce

2 tsp corn starch

Whisk all ingredients together, set aside.

For the stir fry:

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 green onions, white and green parts sliced

2 Tbsp Sriracha sauce (aka rooster sauce) or chile garlic paste

6 oz. shitake mushrooms, stemmed, sliced thin

2 stalks celery, sliced thin on the bias

4 Tbsp vegetable oil

Combine garlic, white parts of onions and chile paste, set aside. Heat one Tbsp oil in non-stick pan over high. Add mushrooms, cook until soft (3-5 minutes), then add celery and cook until crisp-tender (3-5 minutes). Remove from pan. Add remaining 3 Tbsp oil to pan, add chile-garlic sauce. Stir 30 seconds. Lower heat to medium-low, cook pork until no longer pink (3-5 minutes). Add sauce, increase heat to high and cook 1-2 minutes until thickened. Add veggies, toss to combine. Sprinkle with remaining sliced green onions. Serve with rice (or Adam requested crunchy chinese noodles next time, with water chestnuts instead of celery).

Last night was salmon with cucumber relish (also from Cooks Illustrated so I will transcribe the recipe for you here):

Oven Roasted Salmon from Cooks Illustrated

Skin on salmon filets

Olive oil, salt and pepper

Place baking sheet (lined with foil to make you dish washer happy) on the bottom rack of your oven, and heat to 500 degrees. Meanwhile, coat salmon filets (1 1/2 thick) with olI’ve oil, salt, pepper. Turn oven temp to 275, place salmon on pre-heated baking sheet, and cook 9-13 minutes.

Top with cucumber relish:

1 Tbsp chopped shallot

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

1 serrano chile, seeded, ribs removed, diced

2 Tbsp fresh mint, chopped

1 Tbsp lime juice

1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients, let sit 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings with additional salt and lime juice.

I have made this before. It is delicious. They have several other relish options, which are also tasty (you might be able to link to this one). On the side we had broccolini with sesame vinaigrette. I’m constantly looking for new ways to make veggies tasty. Again, I was too congested to tell you if this was good. I can tell you it was spicy.

Book Group

I am part of a book group that meets about once a month. We take turns hosting and the host provides the entree, everyone else provides the sides. We try to have a theme that fits with the book, but in some cases (like the Hunger Games) it makes more sense to go with a theme fitting of the date. This month we had book group on President’s Day, so we went with “americana.”

I hosted and made burgers. Simple, easy and delicious thanks to the grass fed beef we bought from a local ranch. We have about 1/16th of a cow in our freezer. It is absolutely the best ground beef ever.

The Herbfarm

Last night we went out for an amazing dining experience. Two of our very good friends are moving away, and as their going-away celebration (not that we are celebrating their leaving… we are very sad that they are leaving), we all went to the Herbfarm for dinner.

The Herbfarm is a “farm-to-table” dining establishment, with one seating per night. It’s a set menu, with 9 courses and wine pairings. The chef is 26 years old. I think I was still cooking macaroni and cheese from a box when I was 26 years old. They have a theme menu, which changes every two weeks or so. It was “a taste of trees” last night, with each course incorporating wood smoke, tree nuts, etc. It was really a phenomenal experience, one that I hope some day to repeat. Perhaps when it is mushroom week.

The menu from last night:

Applewood-smoked steelhead with celery root Fueille de Brick and Oregon black truffle soup, with a Virginica oyster in pine-smoked sea water with smoked arctic char roe

Albacore tuna with parsnip cream

Braised acorn-fed pork neck with chestnut spaetzle and rutabaga puree

Roasted Moulard duck with beet sauce, blackened beets, raisined beets, elderberry tree capers and hazelnuts

Charcoal grilled lamp with rosemary garlic farina cake and sausage of wild black trumpet mushrooms and lamb

Dinah’s cheese with carrot-elder tree blossom marmalade

Barlett pear raviolo in douglas fir consomme

Whiskey savarin with walnut butter, whiskey snap tuile and bay leaf-maple syrup ice cream

Assorted small sweets

 

 

 

 

Crock Pot Lasagna

I love my crock pot. I love coming home to a house that smells like I’ve been cooking all day, when really all I did was throw some stuff in a pot and push a button. I struggle to find really good slow cooker recipes though. Most are just ok: lacking in flavor, not cooked quite right, or (on rare occasion) just bad. I keep trying though, and my latest attempt was a Pinterest find–slow cooker lasagna.

It was quick (about 10 minutes prep work). It was easy. But it was bland. I think it could have been improved with sausage instead of ground beef, and more flavorful tomato sauce (I used TJ’s tomato basil marinara). It was just surprisingly un-tasty for the amount of cheese in there. Plus, it only cooks for 4 hours. This is a problem with crock pot recipes, because I can’t just turn it on when I leave the house in the morning. I probably won’t make this again. It was a lot of cheese and not a lot of taste, and just didn’t thrill me. The quest to find good crock pot recipes continues!

Chicken with Rice (or vice versa)

Last night we had arroz con pollo (sans olives), from the lovely Joy the Baker. I love her blog. It’s just lovely. She seems like she would be a lot of fun to hang out with.

This was delicious. And easy. And only involved one pot, which Adam (official dishwasher of the Silberfein household) appreciated. Will definitely be making this one again, perhaps with more chicken next time so we can get 6 servings out of it.

Leftovers

Sometimes I don’t feel like cooking. Sometimes I would rather go to the gym. Usually on those nights we will get take out (Mr. Gyros is my personal favorite), but we had so much food in our fridge from this week, we decided to do a leftovers night. The enchiladas from Monday? So much better as leftovers! And the falafel was still delicious, but I think it was the pita bread and garlic sauce that I truly love. I just needed the falafel there because it doesn’t strike me as social acceptable to eat a pita filled with garlic sauce. Add some falafel–and you have a meal.

Falafel

After college, I could make three things: sauteed chicken breasts, eggplant parmesean and falafel. At some point I decided to expand my repertoire, and I never looked back. I wouldn’t say I “learned” to cook. I really just follow recipes, but my meals are much more interesting these days. Last night I decided to fall back on an old standard and made falafel.

I use a recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook:

2 cans chick peas, rinsed and drained

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp salt

6 green onions, sliced

1/4 cup water

1 Tbsp lemon juice (we were out, I use white wine vinegar instead)

Add all ingredients to a food processor and process until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in 1/3 cup flour. Heat 2-3 Tbsp. vegetable oil in a frying pan. Drop tablespoon-fulls of batter in the oil and let cook until brown and firm enough to flip. Turn and flatten (we are making falafel pancakes, not the little balls you usually get–you have to deep fry them if you want little balls). Cook until firm enough to remove from the pan, and drain on a paper towel lined plate.

I served them on really good pita bread (the thick doughy kind, not the thin pocket-bread kind), with onions (thinly sliced and soaked in seasoned rice vinegar for about 20-30 minutes to take the edge off), tomatoes, avocados and garlic sauce. They were fabulous, and will definitely be making a return to the rotation.