What did we cook in OC?, Entirely ecumenical; breakfast lunch dinner + in-betweens and afters

[Priscilla]

The other evening we roasted a Costco rack of pork we'd taken a chance on because 1. it was there and 2. we were a little affected by Costco Syndrome. Not out of control, just willin' to take a chance on a Costco rack of pork. Actually was a wonderful quite unlean delicious pork roast... will allow Costco to influence us in this way again! And, provided me the opportunity to practice my butcher's knot, a languished skill I was inspired to restore after recently reading Bill Buford's Heat.

Also, feeling the strong desire for VEG after Thanksgiving and its aftermath, we went to the Sunday Lag Niguel/Aliso Viejo farmers market and got, among other regulars like salad greens and fruit, everything for a ratatouille. Clarissa squash, beautiful eggplants, red bell peppers, snappy green beans, good reddish greenish heirloom tomatoes. Had onion and garlic, thyme and marjoram from the garden; 1 bay leaf; a big Emile Henry Fait Tout (evocative!) full; ratatouille once again fulfilled its destiny as ultra ultra veg. Exactly what was called for.

Cream Pan ciabatta.

[Joan]

I made a really strange but imho tasty rice noodle stir fry this morning. I put in the aforementioned wide and flat rice noodles (chow fun), homemade kimchi vegetarian oyster sauce, some red miso for salt, some chopped broccoli.

I really liked the spicy seasoning on this one. Next time, I might add some sesame oil/seeds.

[Joan]

Today, I made some peanut butter cupcakes, some peppermint oreo ice cream. Ate that, got sick, then ate some plain lentils and felt better.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, NY strips from El Toro Meat,started on stovetop finished in oven, very good.

But the stars of the meal were the veg: beets from Farmer Mike, roasted, cubed about 3/8", dressed w/walnut oil & balsamic, gorgonzola crumbled atop, showered with finely chopped toasted walnuts. Fresh beautiful walnuts from Mission Ranch Market... a very difficult thing to find, a fresh walnut. Fat farmers market asparagus peeled, sluiced in olive oil, s & p, roasted, delicious. Yukon golds, boiled then smashed a bit with butter, s & p, chives at the end. Baguette from Cream Pan. Yum.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, ahi cutlets, a dish I have pioneered over the last year or so after staring at Costco's nice very fresh reasonable ahi for a couple of years and thinking I would like to make use of this available resource.

Ahi cut thin (easiest if there happens to be a roast among the pkgs. but pieces are usually thick enough to slice again, sometimes even into 3s) and panko'd and sauteed very briefly, s & p.

Landed atop ruffly redleaf from Top Veg bracingly dressed with olive olive and balsamic.

Cream Pan ciabatta.

[Joan]

My God, you guys certainly eat well. Let's see, what did I have today:

Quinoa with chickpeas, brown rice gruel with blueberries, green powder, and some ground flax and chia seed dumped in.
5 apples
2 oranges
lots of water
some bibimnaengmyun
a piece of white bread with vinegar and oil.
8, count 'em, EIGHT CHOCOLATE GANACHE COVERED VEGAN CUPCAKES THAT I MADE.

I am disgusted with myself right now.

[Priscilla]

Joan where do you get your quinoa. Don't fret about eating your cupcakes!

Got boeuf aux carottes in the oven right now... nice big chuck roast from El Toro Meat, only smallish ones in the case but the guy nicely found one on the table back there like 7+ lbs., so I took the whole piece and trimmed a nice-looking 5.5-lb. piece to tie up for my braise. 1.75 lb. overage in the freezer awaiting another use, likely Bolognese.

Yukon golds peeled and awaiting cookage.

Chevre souffles for the salade garni made, waiting quietly in the fridge... they get reovened before service.

Cream Pan baguette, from this morning's outing.

[Priscilla]

OK, the remains of the boeuf aux carottes, only now it had become pot pie, with a nice Trader Joe's all-butter puff pastry lid.

Salade.

And Anderson Cooper's 360 Transition Team. Who knew little Anderson had his own Transition Team? And here's me thinking it's just presidents and related.

[Joan]

I gotta lose some weight so yesterday I mostly ate fruit and some vegetable soup. and some oatmeal. and some almonds to go to sleep.

[Priscilla]

Joan, one finds it difficult to believe that you have even an extra ounce to lose.

Last evening, beer-can chicken, a chicken preparation I eschewed for years and years as just not my style. Just sounded SO like not my style.

It was the OC Register's own Cathy Thomas who got me to overcome my elitest prejudice towards beer-can chicken, in an article about bbq-grilling guru Steven Raichlen's book on the subject. (The video link to the preparation on that page is great, too; I love Cathy Thomas's videos.)

I notice as of December 2008 she's freelance rather than staff, as goes the Reg. As long as she's still writin'.

The simple paprika/brown sugar/salt/black pepper rub in that article is really some kinda genius. Just delicious. I keep it around all the time now, give it as hostess gifts, etc. We used it on a turkey to great effect, and on chicken thighs slow-cooked in the old Weber as well, with no beer-can involvement whatsoever. Course the bulk sea salt (Giusto's Pacific Evaporated) from Mother's and the black pepper from Penzey's and a fresh container of paprika from Smart & Final, not forgetting the C&H dark brown sugar, all mixed together in proper proportion -- what's not to like?

But Stater Brothers had the cheap-and-cheerful chicken, so we did two over hardwood charcoal, with typically good results. There is definitely something about the interior beer steam that does very good things for the chicken. And the flavor of the simple rub on the outside, WAY more than the sum of its parts.

Served with chopped salade w/blanched green beans, fennel bulb, celery, cucumber (those from Top Veg), avocado from Stehley, tomato from the fahncy tomato guy, and double-smoked bacon fromMattern. Grainy mustard vinaigrette I'd made for the night before's dorade (OK, mahi-mahi) w/redleaf salade. CP butter rolls.

Santa Monica Seafood on Saturday had mahi-mahi on sale, and it looked so good, that was our fish on Saturday night. I hadn't cooked mahi-mahi dorade dorado in years and years at home -- it was great. I marinated it over the afternoon in olive oil and lemon and a garlic herb paste from the mortar & pestle, after a recommendation from Alan Davidson for this fish. Just excellent. And of course the ruffly redleaf from Top Veg was just so good as usual. CP ciabatta.

[Priscilla]

Last evening Nigella Lawsonish 24-hour pork... Stater Brothers conveniently had pork shoulder roasts for 99 cents/lb., and I put it in around 6 p.m. Monday evening for Tuesday night dinner. Hot oven for 30 mins. fat side down, then flip fat side up and 225 degrees for the duration. (Nigella does not cook it fat side up, and original instructions were for a whole shoulder which is a different cut than the butt I used, for what it's worth.)

Pork gets meltingly tender this way, and the leftovers make fine carnitasish pork when recrisped. Lots of good leftovers result regardless of carnitas.

Served with a variant of Marcella Hazan's salsa verde, which she (or Victor, as we know) translates as "piquant green sauce." Which about sums it up. I used a bunch of parsley from the garden, the end of some really green Sicilian-style olives from Claro's, an h.b. egg yolk, about 1/2 tin anchovies which had been kicking around, maybe a clove of garlic, s & p, olive oil, waaaazed, as Jamie says, in the old Cuisinart. Oil added as for mayonnaise, seasoning adjusted @ end. Just excellent and, yes, piquant, with the rich meat.

And with the boiled Yukon golds, just plain peeled and boiled. Really, the green sauce may have been made for this purpose if it hadn't been made for meat.

Broccoli from the carrot lady at the farmers market, blanched and at serving time sauteed with the littlest bit of garlic and olive oil, s & p.

[alosha7777]

You really do eat well, Priscilla!

I made pork Marsala last night with pork loin chops and plenty of onions and mushrooms, which came out nice and sweet and soft. Served with just a tiny bit of linguini noodles and creamed spinach with garlic and shallots on the side. Really simple actually, but a great weeknight meal.

[Priscilla]

You don't seem to do so bad yerself at your house, Melissa.

Where do you buy pork chops anywhere special? All those scallopini variations are very useful, and very satisfying to cook, I think.

Have you ever tried Farmer Mike's spinach? He sells at the Tustin Wednesday market on El Camino Real and at the Irvine UCI Saturday market. (Thrilling to see I Nom Things buys his stuff, too.)

He also has excellent beets, and the greens are like the best spinach in the world that is actually beet greens.

His spinach has always been my favorite of all the spinach available to me.

[Joan]

I actually don't buy much in the way of greens because I grow most of my own. We have beets right now, lots of kale, this one Korean green, whose American name I don't know, and several other greens. Snap peas are flowering.

[Priscilla]

Joan, I'll be having my own greens from the garden just as soon as, just as soon as, just as soon as I do. Meantime I am thankful for Farmer Mike.

We had carnitas burritos for the trad Margarita Friday. Got the big-ass tortillas @ Celinda's, which are really Los Golondrinas's, made with LARD so they are really good. Refried beans I'd made with the usual Mother's organic pintos, and Celinda's pico de gallo, in there as well.

Margaritas with fresh-squeezed-by-me orange juice and lemon juice the same, the citrus we had kicking around. Majorly yum.

Made all the better by the blessed return of EastEnders, made possible by having made a connection with the local EE underground.

[Priscilla]

Saturday had some neighbors in, some we have known for years and others we didn't know priorly. Was nice!

Chevre gougeres, candied sweet savory walnuts, olives.

Made a shrimp dish w/feta and tomato sauce I used to make years ago; still good, turns out.

Also a plethora of veg, roasted together. Olive oil, couple T. chopped rosemary, 4 or 5 unpeeled cloves of garlic, s & p. So good, due to the innate goodness of the bought-that-a.m. farmers market produce. Little red and Yukon gold potatoes, fennel bulb, cipollini, Clarissa squash, zucchini, red bell peppers. Potatoes from Zuckerman's, most all else from Top Veg, although the Clarissa was from the tomato guy.

Nice green salad of (Top Veg) ruffly redleaf dressed w/olive oil and Balsamic.

Dorie Greenspan's French Yogurt Cake from Baking: From My Home to Yours, w/orange zest and glazed w/reduced orange juice, zest, sugar. Ivan made his ever-popular vanilla ice cream, Philadelphia style from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, and we garnished with blackberries from the fm.

Then yesterday, having gone to Marukai, panko'd red snapper w/rice from the cooker, broccoli from Top Veg w/mayonnaise a la Uoko, Japanese cucumbers (also Top Veg!) quick pickled w/rice vinegar & yuzu.

[Joan]

Okay, I made kimchi today. Vegan kimchi. I like it really gingery so I threw a lot in. I also put in a bunch of minari (Korean watercress) and since somehow we ran out of onions, I put in a bunch of overgrown green onions that were on their way to becoming regular onions.

Turned out surprisingly well!

In other news, I bought some Hershey's chocolate syrup for the first time (it has no animal ingredients, surprisingly). I found it too sweet and not chocolatey enough. I also had a big pound plus bar of bittersweet chocolate from Trader Joes (72%). I heated some too-sweet chocolate syrup in the microwave and threw in about 6-7 squares of the chocolate. Let it cool and it became a respectable ganache which I am now eating on some bread. MMMMMMMM.

--I was craving chocolate glazed donuts the other day, but what I finally realized is that craving was just a result of wanting something that resembled melted chocolate ganache. Mmmmmmm.

This post has been edited by Joan: Mar 2 2009, 07:13 AM

[Priscilla]

Joan, the kimchee sounds good. Do you eat it right away? Or does it ferment for a while. I was just watching NYC fave David Chang on Tivo'd Martha, you know he's all about kimchee in all sorts of places. He was making in this case his $200 version of bo ssam served at his Ssam Bar, which apparently features both regular and pureed kimchee among its many condiments. I am SO making his bo ssam with my next, or a soon, on-sale-at-Stater-Brothers non-Berkshire Farmer John pork shoulder roast, but it won't cost $200, neither. However I do not begrudge him his for ONE second, and would be glad to have it in his restaurant.

Dunno about the Hershey's syrup though. Once or twice, when Le Mangeur was little, still in the chocolate milk years, seeking the Hershey's syrup flavor profile, I made Alton Brown's Cocoa Syrup, which was pretty darn close. Seems to me it didn't dissolve as well in milk for whatever reason, and the cocoa flavor, while true to the Hershey's flavor, palls on the palate, but it is what it is.

Last evening, Claro's sausage roasted atop roast veg, Zuckerman potatoes, little reds and little Yukon Golds, fennel bulb and cipollini from Top Veg, carrots from the carrot lady, turnips from Farmer Mike, lots of garlic cloves in the peel from the Korean garlic/ginger people (they have lots of other stuff, but it's their garlic that attracted me when I espied it from a far distance). Rosemary and thyme from the garden, olive oil, few red pepper flakes, s & p. CP ciabatta, Trader Joe's saltylicious butter.

Claro's sausage is really good, one reremembers every time one eats it.

[Joan]

Nah, I let it ferment for about a couple of days and then I put it in the fridge.

Well, I admit the Hershey's was a mistake but I was proud of myself for making the best of a bad situation.

[Priscilla]

It was disappointment with Hershey's that led me to try the Alton Brown recipe... a really acute one of those "this tasted SO much better when I was little" things.

And I think it did, I don't think I'm imagining. It's always been a cocoa powder product, and a little corn syrup isn't unusual in confectionary syrups, but I blame high fructose corn syrup being used as the main sweetener for the worse flavor. Course I'm just now reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Michael Pollan is very convincing on the HFCS front.

Your experiment leads me to think that with your vegan-approved chocolate and a little garden-variety Karo syrup you could probably make a vegan ganache.