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

[DanGarion]

I thought Trader Joe's had "fire roasted" tomatoes, either Muir Glen or under their own label, but I haven't looked in a while.

They only have fire roasted diced tomatoes!

[Priscilla]

Well I knew I saw the fire-roasted part.

Whole Foods definitely has the Muir Glen line, if you want to try them next time.

But one does wonder how important said "fire roasting" is to the finished dish, doesn't one.

[DanGarion]

Well I knew I saw the fire-roasted part.

Whole Foods definitely has the Muir Glen line, if you want to try them next time.

But one does wonder how important said "fire roasting" is to the finished dish, doesn't one.

I try to keep my shopping to the stores I cross during my normal driving of the day, Trader Joe's, Albertson's, sometimes Sprouts. Of course I could also visit Vons (ugh) or Stater Brothers but I grew up going to Lucky's and I still stick with Albertson's because of that. Whenever we used to go to Whole Foods I would get hypnotized with their excellent but very expensive meat section!

[Priscilla]

Ya, understandable. I like Stater Brothers, esp. when they put Farmer John pork shoulder on sale, but I am still mad at the one on, what is it, Collins and Tustin, for giving Ivan and me a hard time about a personal check, for our purchase of about all of $6. or something, back in 1983 when we'd just moved to Orange after getting married.

However I happily see my way clear to shop at SB in El Toro/Lake Forest because it is innocent

Sprouts seems like a place that'd carry Muir Glen. And you Orangers have TWO Fresh & Easys, purveyors of all sorts of groovy and staple stuff. Would not be surprised if they have some decent, well-priced tomato products.

[DanGarion]

I like Fresh and Easy, and I went there a lot for awhile. My issue with F&E is it's great for things you know they have, because you have bought it in the past. But it's very hit and miss for things you don't know if they have! We needed pie crust to make some empanadas (never made a pie crust before so we didn't want to chance it) and all they had were frozen ones already in a pie tin, instead of the roll out ones I like to use.

[Priscilla]

Yes, each visit to F&E is kind of a discovery trip. I am surprised they wouldn't have an F&E brand rollup piecrust, actually. Bet they will eventually.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, The Great Claro's Anise vs. No-Anise Sausage-Off, in which let's just get it out of the way RIGHT away, No-Anise won in a walkaway.

Just superior in every respect: Flavor, texture, even construction.

The regular old sweet are not bad sausages, but these were just way more porkylicious. We'll definitely be a No-Anise family going forward.

(And Claro's sausage, as noted in the linked Claro's topic above, are on sale this month, making their ridiculously cheap cost even less.)

Alongside we had warm potato salade from nice Yukon Golds from Friday's Lag Hls farmers market with chives from the garden, although also TECHNICALLY from the Friday Lag Hls market because the plants came from the herb guy there ages ago. Excellent plants, he's got and at the bargain price of 3/$10. I realize too the salade's shallot also was from the market, from Top Veg, whose shallots are just a pantry staple is all.

Alongside the alongside there was Italian cabbage salade, finely shredded cabbage (from a portion of this week's $1.50 $1 cabbage), finely shredded carrot, small dice tomato (the carrot lady's tomatoes this week are just incredible... summerworthy, I swear), and the merest breath of garlic from my smallest-gauge Microplane?. Marcella's cabbage salades always have a smashed or bruised garlic clove that is removed later, but I like the idea of a few garlic cells actually distributed throughout the salade. Plenty of salt and pepper, Balsamic, the PERFECT vinegar for this salade, though not perfect for EVERY salade, people, can we just agree on that? Sluiced generously with the excellent unfiltered organic olive oil we're using at present from Mission Ranch Market's extensive range and left to its own devices for an hour or more. SUCH a good salade. And truly, could it be any easier or more thrifty? I think not.

The rolls conveying the aforementioned sausage were new and typically fantastic, because they were from Cream Pan. They look like little baguettes, but are made from Yoshi's sandwich bread dough, so they are light and flexible and well, just delicious. Extraordinarily great sandwich rolls, and a perfect match for the sausages.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, Veg Monday, fresh pasta w/Gorgonzola sauce, the Gorgonzola acquired from an until-then uncut wheel of Stella brand at Claro's. I also found a nice chunk of Parmigiano with only the smallest rind side, just the way I like it. I also like Stella blue cheese IF the wheel is uncut or clearly recently cut. You know how fast the blues ammoniaize once cut, or even un-, sitting around too long. So I jump at the chance, given the chance... and am lucky to had had it occur as much as it has.

(If you are ever at Claro's and there is a Parmigiano wheel sitting on the wire-equipped cutting board, get them to cut you a nice big piece. It's so much more flavorful cut fresh. Theirs is generally in pretty good condition even in the pre-cuts, (how long has the Trader Joe's Parm, for instance, been in its mummifying clear wrap?) but you'll notice the diff if you are lucky enough to get one cut right there and then.)

Also roasted beet salade dressed w/lemon and olive oil, salt and pepper. A time-honored combination w/the Gorgonzola sauce pasta for us, from my earliest Marcella Years of the 1980s. And, verily, are from her first (1974) book. Not that I had an inkling of it when I was 14, but I made up for that ~10 years later.

Cream Pan baguette; you know -- the usual perfection.

[Priscilla]

So as sometimes happens, by request, last evening it was a chicken preparation, chicken with piquant sauce, from Ada Boni, redux, recent redux, as we just had it for the first time on this past Saturday. But THEY wanted it again, and the celery risotto from Marcella alongside again as well, and so it came to pass.

Veg was different howevah as Sat was beet greens and last night was lovely butter lettuce salade with lovely Top Veg butter lettuce. The celery was also from Top Veg, and well, celery ain't just another staple for tuna salade when it comes from Top Veg. So aromatic and crunchy and juicy... allowing one the privilege, which sometimes happens in life, to peer backwards in time and understand a little about how celery came to be such a taken-for-granted staple in the first place. It USED to be like this! They don't call 'em "aromatics" for nothing, after all.

Freshness in celery, as in iceberg lettuce, is vital. Perhaps the most important thing, more so even than the specific purveyor. Both of these watery, large-celled veg deteriorate so quickly, even while retaining a goodly vestige of the crunch that is their raison d'etre in many applications and that somewhat disguises or distracts from the beginning breakdon.

Yet if one was honest, and had had the benefit of having a truly fresh example to compare the taste experience to, one could easily see that the many-days-old supermarket versions of these much-maligned veg are not the standard by which they should be judged.

Freshfreshfresh, both have their own proud places in cooking. I am glad to have been able to buy iceberg lettuce at farmers markets when I need it and UNlearn the mistaken assumptions one receives.

Even perfectly fresh celery is still a subtle thing, making it such a good foil for crunchy salt during Cocktail Hour, for instance. Clearing your mind and your palate, and really tasting it on purpose, can be revelatory. Course that's not what happens with Top Veg celery... Top Veg celery I'll be prepping and mindlessly pop an imperfect cut into my maw, crunchcrunchcrunch and be WALLOPED with FLAVOR. And then the secondary upper-palate blast of aroma. A person could practically get high on that, I'm not kidding. Celery.

[DanGarion]

Last night I made scallop potatoes from scratch using some Yukon Golds I bought at the store last week. The sauce part recipe called for just butter, onions, salt, pepper, and milk, so at the very end I added the leftover cheese sauce I had from the cauliflower I made on Friday. They turned out really good for a very basic recipe, I was brought up on the boxed type and I never really liked it (except for the crunchy parts that would be stuck to the dish). Then I grilled up some bangers from Matern's that I bought months ago, Kelly didn't have them then because she thought she wouldn't like them, but yesterday she had no choice! She liked the banger, so now I can add that to my grocery list of things I can get for us to eat again in the future. Lastly she quickly cooked up some broccoli on the stove. Overall a really good basic meal.

[Priscilla]

Sounds really really good, Dan.

Can one really go wrong with sausages (ESP. from Mattern) and potatoes? I think not. Add in a cruciferous veg? A slam-dunk meal.

[Priscilla]

It'll be a few days of transforming non-OC provisioned provisions into OC dishes, starting w/this a.m.'s smoked salmon on Gayle's Bakery Jewish rye w/butter. minced and squoze Gilroy shallot from Pezzini, seived egg, salt & pepper.

One of my (many) ad hoc rules is: When one finds oneself sitting in front of a guy taking perfect slices off a big side of smoked BC wild king salmon, one should avail herself of some. So, added to the trad Swan Oyster Depot takeaway. Done and done.

More transformations on the docket, Pezzini artichokes giant, to be steamed for dinner accompaniment, and Pezzini artichokes medium, to be ruthlessly trimmed and braised w/Gilroy garlic and olive oil to accompany (the plan is) tomorrow's dinner featuring the selection of goat cheeses procured from the Berkeley Cheese Board Collective. Ivan especially liked, nay, loved the Cheese Board... cheese and communistic enterprise, together again.

[Priscilla]

Zuni-method chicken last night, with very good results. SOME at the table, Ivan and Le Mangeur, said better than Zuni's! I would not go that far, would be immodest. But, very good.

Bread salade much more substantial than Zuni's on account of using Cream Pan ciabatta... whatever Acme product Zuni uses is exceedingly light and fluffy, for artisanal rustic bread particularly. But of course CP's ciabatta is faultless, and its wheaty flavor was so good in there. Just pointed up what I was already amazed at while at Zuni, the lightness of the bread used for the bread salade. Interesting.

Zuni Caesar also, and it is positively remarkable how Judy Rodgers reached conclusions similar to mine about Caesar dressing methodology. Excellent excellent excellent, even with regular old oil-packed anchovies. Nice new Italian jar from Mission Ranch Market, though, very good flavor... you know how anchovies can vary. The Farmer Mike Romaine had more than a little to do with the success of the salade, but that is true no matter the particular dressing treatment. Good lettuce is just plain good.

We found ourselves at Hi-Time getting cocktail supplies and so brought home the Mount Eden Pinot Noir we'd had at Zuni. Just to help along our experiment. It was yum (again).

[Priscilla]

Last evening, tacos of David Changesque cured pork belly, salsa Mexicana. Cilantro from Farmer Mike in there, and tomatoes from the carrot lady, but no chiles in the market yet so the jalapenos came from Grower's Ranch. Sadly, they were the modern unhot hybrid, but were not totally sans heat. And green, fresh, crunchy, which together are a big part of what jalapenos bring to the table.

Blood orange margaritas to accompany, so good. After the recipe of Dean Fearing, a Texas chef I've always admired.

Blood oranges from our favorite source made these possible. Yummers. Will we have blood oranges of our own this year? Unknown. Ain't no rushing the canyon microclimate's naturally delayed season. However one lives in hope.

[Priscilla]

Last night delicious ahi from a little fish boutique I like to call Costco Irvine, judiciously marinated acc. to my signature Asian Taste preparation, seared in a little grapeseed and landed atop wonderful Top Veg butter lettuce from Saturday's Irvine farmers market haul. Dressed w/Miss Priscilla's signature creamy teriyaki dressing. Cream Pan butter roll twists.

A family classic, we have this menu or a close simulacrum pretty frequently.

That Costco ahi is one of the greatest resources within our fish-poor foraging area. Also Costco opah, Costco ling cod (which I love for batter-fried), and Costco halibut, which looked so good yesterday it almost insinuated itself into dinner before I had assessed the ahi. Halibut is another habitual for us, so I know there'll be another chance. No mahi-mahi today, but there often is, in season, and that is a delicious fish too.

What an incredible gift to be able to CHOOSE from among MORE THAN A COUPLE, OK, even MORE THAN ONE wild fish in great condition. And at very very fair prices.

Occurs to me there oughta be a dedicated Costco topic, as well as a Fish in OC topic. I'll see what I can do about these burning issues presently.

[Priscilla]

Done AND done.

Dedicated fish topic. (Over there in Provisioning.)

Fishy pointers appreciated!

[Priscilla]

Last evening a Marcella Hazan recipe long in the pondering, like literal years, that finally found its moment. You know how that goes. AFter a day of painting a room and a nice Extended Cocktail Hour on the promontory its moment had arrived.

Pasta w/tuna, cream, an egg, Parmigiano, garlic, parsley... delicious. Which I could tell it was going to be starting all those years ago when I put a placeholder in the book. But add to that it's composed entirely of pantry staples, IF one's pantry, like mine, is stocked w/Parmigiano Reggiano. There was a jar of olive-oil packed Italian tuna from my beloved Mission Ranch Market (although I was prepared to use my Costco water-packed albacore without hesitation) too, kicking around, serendipitously. I used a favorite flat noodle, fresine, between linguine and fettucine in width (Cora brand... pasta shapes sizes names do vary between brands... what some of 'em call trenette, for instance, is surprising.) Will be returning to this recipe, not tonight, but quite likely the next.

Leftover big fat delicious Zuckerman asparagus was the veg. GOOD. Cream Pan ciabatta rolls, do we even need to say good? They are, by the way.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, golabki, golubtsy, stuffed cabbage made mostly by Ivan with some input. For years I'd been wanting to try Mrs. Kostyra's recipe, so it was decided, as a pre-birthday special request from me, that Saturday was to be the day.

Beautiful Savoy cabbage from Saturday's provisioning at the Irvine UCI farmer's market, Top Veg, just so good. Ground beef from El Toro Meat, ground pork from 99 Ranch, Mahatma long-grain.

An excellent version of this classic dish.

[Priscilla]

Last evening, Veg Wednesday, veg soup, with a plethora of beautiful veg from the farmers market, some bought expressly for the purpose others finding a home.

Veg soup is one of those things that can be ungood or SO good, depending. I have a lot a lot a lot of non-OC-specific thoughts on the matter, which I have written extensively about elsewhere.

Briefly, scallions, onion sauteed in a little butter (I did say VEG not VEGAN), garlic added, uniformly small-dice fennel bulb, parsnip, carrot, celery, potatoes, the remainder of the Savoy from the other day's stuffed cabbage (I love it when a plan comes together), half a tomato kicking around, some fennel tops, judicious seasoning with m'sea salt and freshly ground pepper + the essential undetectable tiny hit of cayenne.

To accompany, had a homemade flatbread in the freezer which matched up with a compound butter in there as well softened and spread, and a couple thick slices of whole-milk mozz diced and melted over did not go amiss.

There you go, veg AND virtuously thrifty, together again.

[Priscilla]

Last night, the Bolognese started the previous day... I love to prep all the veg for more than one dish at one time, and all that chopping made the onion-carrot-celery for Bolognese really so easy to assemble. That and the fact that I had on hand delicious El Toro Meat 22%, fine Cento no-junk tomatoes, and the end of a bottle of white wine.

So, freeeeeeee. Even better.

And it was good, served w/rigatoni rigate and lashings of Parmigiano Reggiano. Crunchy veg side of Farmer Mike radishes, oh my goodness sososo good, and the rest of the excellent celery also from Saturday's market haul and my habitual Pacific Evaporated sea salt.

Cream Pan ciabatta rolls were, it almost goes without actually saying, just right.