I'm back! Summer orzo salad with pistachio-crusted salmon and a strawberry balsamic reduction.

Okay, so I have majorly been neglecting this thing.  It's been about 15 months since I last updated, and I've definitely been cooking between then and now.  Now that I am (temporarily, I hope) unemployed and between semesters, I'm sure I'll have a lot more time to post some delicious recipes for the three people who actually read this thing.

The DC area does not get spring.  Well, we get about three days of spring.  I swear it went from freezing to 95 degrees in a flash.  95 degrees, to me, is summer.  Summer always makes me crave fruit, fish, vegetables, and the cottage in Northern Wisconsin I went to as a kid.  So, to ring in summer, I present to you:

Summer Orzo Salad with Pistachio Crusted Salmon and a Strawberry Balsamic Reduction

 Serves 2

For the salad:

1/2 c dry orzo

1 c fresh baby spinach, chopped

1/4 c chopped red onion

1/2 c strawberries, hulled and chopped

half an English cucumber, peeled and diced

half an avocado, diced  

For the salmon:

2 salmon fillets

1/3 c shelled pistachios

3 T plain breadcrumbs

olive oil

For the reduction:

1/2 c strawberries, hulled and chopped

1/2 c balsamic vinegar

1 T honey 

Boil the orzo according to the package directions (and you have better make it al dente!).  Let it come to room temperature, and then combine with other salad ingredients.

Put the strawberries and balsamic vinegar in a blender and combine.  In a saucepan over medium-high heat, reduce the strawberry balsamic mixture along with the honey for about fifteen minutes until it is thick and syrupy.

Pulse the pistachios in a food processor until they resemble breadcrumbs.  Add the breadcrumbs and pulse to mix.  Put the pistachio mixture in something flat and press the salmon fillets in to coat.  Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat and cook the salmon to desired doneness.  Personally, I like a medium-rare piece of salmon (or medium at most).  

Put the salmon on top of the salad, and top with strawberry balsamic reduction.

For a special touch, you can top it with a few pistachios.

And there you have it.  Mangia!

 

  

Not Suitable for Vegetarians: Bone Marrow

Finally.  I did it.

The process of planning, cooking, and sharing a meal is one of my greatest joys.  Sunday morning, I made an attempt at crepes with a salted lemon butter caramel sauce.  Suffice to say, it was not fantastic.  Dinner was going to have to be phenomenal to have to make up for the morning's disaster.  Unsure of exactly what the plan was, we headed to Wegmans.  If you haven't been to Wegmans, you are missing out.  After browsing for a bit, a dinner of small plates was decided upon.  While picking out some delicious things - crab stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped scallops, cave aged Gruyere, and an assortments of olives - my love discovered that they had frozen marrow bones in stock.  Schwing!

First, I put them into a bath of tepid water and kosher salt to both thaw them and draw out any blood/impurities. I kept them in the bath for about two hours, changing the water once, but I've seen it recommended to soak them for up to 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Stand the bones up on their wide end, and roast for 15-25 minutes, until marrow is bubbly.  In the meantime, slice a baguette and chop a shallot and 4 tablespoons of fresh parsley.  Mix the shallot and parsley together with some kosher salt and black pepper.  In retrospect I wish I'd toasted the bread a bit, so do that.

Once bones have roasted, run a knife around each end.  Marrow should pop out fairly easily.  Serve it with the baguette and shallot-parsley mixture.

On its own the marrow didn't taste like much, just sort of greasy and gelatinous.  With a bit of garnish, however, it turned into an unctuous palate pleasing treat.

Roasted Bone Marrow Crostini


Ingredients:

3 beef marrow bones, 3-4 in long
1 shallot
4 tbsp fresh parsley
kosher salt
black pepper
baguette

Place bones in tepid well-salted water to draw out blood and impurities and/or thaw the bones, for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours, changing the water at least once.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Stand bones up in roasting pan and roast for 15-25 minutes, until marrow is bubbling.  In the meantime, chop shallot and parsley, mix together with salt and pepper.  Slice baguette and toast slightly.

Once bones are roasted, remove from the oven and run a knife along both ends of the bone around the marrow and it should pop out easily.  Spread over bread and top with shallot parsley mixture.  Mangia!

Eggs California

This weekend's cooking adventure did not go as expected.  In my inaugural blog post, I'd mentioned wanting to try bone marrow.  After several weeks of staying in my comfort zone cooking-wise, I had my mind set on an attempt at bone marrow.  Earlier in the week I'd called Whole Foods asking if the stocked them, getting a vague "sometimes" sort of answer.  


I'd heard great things about some butcher in Del Ray, Let's Meat on the Avenue, and thought it worth the schlep - first we made a stop into Cheestique where we procured rosemary goat cheese, a fig cocoa spread, and fig truffles.  The butcher didn't have anything in the way of bone marrow, saying he'd recently returned from vacation.  We decided to try our luck with Whole Foods.


If you read the title of this post, it's probably obvious to you that Whole Foods did not, in fact, have marrow bones.  The butcher kid said that they usually have them, but their order was late or some such.  Perhaps I'll stumble upon them in the future.  Breakfast that day was pretty great, though, so I thought I'd share it.


Brunch has always one of my favorite meals, Eggs Benedict in particular.  I've enjoyed variations over the years as well, some wonderful ones including substituting smoked salmon (Eggs Hemingway) or a crab cake (Eggs Oscar) for the Canadian bacon.  In this variation, I really the only things it still has in common with Eggs Benedict are the poached egg and the English muffin.  Because of the avocado I dub it...

Eggs California


Makes two


2 English muffins, toasted
1 medium avocado, very ripe, cut into chunks.
1/4 cup crumbled feta
4 ounces smoked salmon
2 poached eggs


Mix and mush together avocado and feta until it is smooth.  Spread over English muffins.  Layer smoked salmon on top of avocado mixture.  Top with poached egg.  Mangia!

New England Clam Chowder

Sometime in the middle of last week, I started feeling pretty yucky.  What better way to ease the pain of a winter cold than a hot bowl of soup?  New England (never Manhattan) Clam Chowder has always been one of my favorites.  In a fancy-pants mood, I decided to put the soup in bread bowls, using the insides for bacon-fat croutons.  

It was a fairly simple process, taking just over an hour from start to finish.


Ingredients and method:


4 strips bacon
2 tbsp butter
2 celery stalks, diced
1 medium onion, diced
3 tbsp flour
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 c. chicken stock
8 oz. clam juice
1 c. heavy cream
2 - 10oz. cans of baby clams in water, strained and rinsed
2 bay leaves
1 lb potatoes, chopped into 1/2" pieces
salt and pepper
round loaves (I used sourdough)


makes about four servings


Fry the bacon until crispy in a heavy skillet, place on paper towels to drain and set aside.  Reserve bacon fat.  Once cool enough to handle, dice bacon.


In large pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add celery and onion, and cook until onions are clear.  Add the garlic and cook just until golden.  Mix in flour.  Cook for a minute or two to get rid of raw flavor.


Add chicken stock slowly, mixing well with flour mixture.  Add the bacon, clam juice, clams, cream, bay leaves, and potatoes, mixing well.  Bring to a simmer.


Once simmering, reduce heat to medium-low and cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.  


While the chowder is cooking, slice the tops off of the sourdough rounds and take out the inside of the loaf, leaving about two inches at bottom and sides.  Tear the inside bread into bite-size pieces and mix with reserved bacon fat, salt, and pepper.  Broil for just a few minutes until golden.


Salt and pepper chowder to taste, then ladle into sourdough bowls.  Sprinkle with croutons.  Mangia!

Mangia! Mangia!

For my inaugural post, since I'm laying in bed and not cooking anything, I'm going to talk about my aspirations as an amateur cook, and what my intention is with this blog.  Though I never intended to perpetuate the heteronormative way, the kitchen has become one of my favorite places to be.  It makes me feel productive, and I get to play mad scientist in a lab.  At the end of it, there is typically delicious food.  What's not to love?


Like millions of other people in the world, I'm mildly obsessed with a website called reddit.  Today I was catching up on posts, and I saw a picture of someone's rendition of The Guardian's shooter sandwich (link to The Guardian).  Obviously I need to make that sandwich, but what really struck me was one of the captions where the cook mentions using bone marrow.  I got to thinking, and went for a ride on the intertubes.  Bone marrow.  Delicious, meaty, fatty bone jelly.  I don't know about you, but I think that sound freaking delicious.  Sometimes it's poached, but typically roasted and spread over a crusty bread and garnished with things like parsley.  Believe me, you will be seeing a post about this in the future.




I love to cook, but I rarely challenge myself.  I cannot remember the last time I prepared to cook a meal that I wasn't confident would turn out at least satisfactory, if not delicious.  This isn't because I'm a fantastic cook, but rather because I stay within my comfort zone.  It's time to break out of that.  You know what that means?  Baking.  Baking has always terrified me.  It requires exact measurement, which is something that my scattered brain resists.  Today, I was checking out my newest website addiction, foodgawker and saw a recipe for Schiacciata, a simple bread typically topped with grapes but quite versatile.  I realized that I'd never heard of it much less baked it, and if I wanted to call myself Italian by ancestry, I needed to start baking.


Speaking of comfort zones, another way in which I need to bust out is trying to cook things that are both healthy and appeal to the palate.  I've always been a proponent of the idea that a stick of butter will make anything delicious, and while true it's not a great idea for the everyday meal.  My stepmother, who more than anyone else taught me how to cook, grew up in New Orleans and uses enough butter in her meals to make Paula Deen blush.  I am the monster that she made, but in the interest in my waistline I'm trying to reform.


I've always been sort of a culture slut when it comes to food, and there are few things that I won't try.  It's enjoyable to spend an evening with a particular cuisine, whether it be the rich and aromatic flavors of Morocco, or the hearty, satisfying simplicity of the British Isles.  I intend to pay homage to as many cultures as possible in my cooking, if for no other reason than I crave variety in my ingredients.  After all, variety is the spice of life.


This is going to be the place where I'll be recording all of this.  I'll take pictures, actually write down what I'm putting in my food (I've always been very much a chop and throw sort of cook; no measuring cups in this kitchen), and do what I can to make this interesting to read.  I expect to make plenty of mistakes, but how else does one learn?  I'm going to cook some fun stuff, some weird stuff, some healthy stuff, and I'm sure there will be plenty of bacon and cheese along the way.  Or at least, I hope.