Surely over the years I’d read about shrimp and grits, but for whatever reason, it never appealed to me much. Or let’s say it didn’t appeal enough to make it; nor had I ever ordered it on the rare occasions when it might have been on a menu. But looking at what I had in the refrigerator to serve alongside some shrimp for dinner the other night, I decided I’d adapt an internet recipe from Bobby Flay. Not only was it easy, but it was downright delicious. Fabulous, actually. We both sat in contented silence relishing each bite. Until the two bowls were slicked clean.

So what exactly was it that made it so good? Well, there’s no question the butter, milk and grated sharp Cheddar cheese helped the grits (aka polenta) along the path to outstanding flavor. That served as the bed for the quickly-made shrimp with bacon, lemon juice, garlic, Italian parsley and green onions. There’s really not much else to it. I made creamy grits/polenta (using half milk, half water), and I added more lemon juice and parsley than Flay’s recipe. Actually I used fat-free half and half for the milk, but 2% milk is just fine.

I also made some sautéed Swiss chard too, thanks to Karen, our daughter-in-law who shared bounty from her garden and her sister’s veggie patch. To serve, I scooped the grits into the bottom of a wide deep bowl (a pasta bowl), then placed the shrimp on one side and the Swiss chard on the other. You can’t quite see the chard in the background of the picture, but that dark unfocused blob is it.

It helps to get all the ingredients ready before you begin – or at least while the polenta is simmering, gather up everything else since once you start cooking the shrimp it’s quick. I needed to add some water to keep the polenta creamy during the last 8 or so minutes of the 20 minutes of cooking time. The Swiss chard takes but a few minutes – we like it with some texture still remaining, so cooking it for only 4-5 minutes is max. I’ve included that recipe below – it’s ever so simple.
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A year ago: Baked Eggs with chorizo & cannellini beans
Two years ago: Chicken with Lemon and Garlic Crust

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Well now. You haven’t seen very many pizza or focaccia recipes on my blog. Why? Because I don’t make them all that much as we try to limit those kinds of carbs. There is one pizza post I did about two years ago (that’s the last time I made it!) – the Chicken, Red Onion, Kalamata Olive and Pesto Pizza – and when I make pizza, that’s about the ONLY one I prepare. But when I had this focaccia a week or so ago, served with the Italian Sausage & Tomato Soup that was so off-the-charts good, I knew I wanted to make this at home. I may have used just a bit more cheese, but with that one exception, I made it exactly as Phillis made it. It’s so perfect to pair with the soup – any soup just about – but it was particularly good with the Italian flavors of the sausage and tomato soup.

It would really help if you live in Trader Joe’s country, though, since you buy the raw pizza dough there AND the artichoke-lemon pesto from there too. I didn’t even look at what’s contained in the pesto, but I suppose you could try to make your own with some canned, chopped artichoke hearts, some olive oil and lemon juice, maybe lemon zest. It’s kind of thick and goopy, not thin.

Anyway, you pat out the pizza dough first. I learned a really important cooking tip about this – pizza dough is ever so much easier to handle if you pat and spread it out on a Silpat. Wow, what a difference from working at it on a countertop. I put the Silpat right in my big rimmed baking sheet, plopped the dough on it, sat down in front of the TV and worked away at it for about 4-5 minutes maybe, and it was done.

You spread the artichoke pesto mixture on top, then add all the Mozzarella. I used whole milk Mozzarella because that’s what I had in my refrigerator. Certainly makes for a more tasty cheese. Then you add thinly sliced rounds of zucchini and red onion to the top, some grated Parmesan (I used Pecorino, actually), and a bit of dried oregano that I scrunched up between my palms before sprinkling it evenly on the top. I’m sure I used more than 1/2 teaspoon, though. It gets baked at a high temp – 450 – and you want to serve it right out of the oven so the cheese is bubbling hot.

To American tastes, there may not be much difference between focaccia and pizza. But going back in Italian history, focaccia is more like a snack, a bread snack. Often Italians serve it plain, with a dimpled top, sometimes with a light slick of olive oil pooling in the dimples. I well remember walking along a little side street in an Italian beach city, peering in a bakery side window with trays and trays of focaccia just baked. The baker was brushing olive oil all over the dimpled top surface. Oh the aroma was heavenly. But that was really plain – it was just bread, salt and olive oil. No cheese or herbs even. Here we often add toppings to focaccia, so it differs very little from pizza – which I consider more of an entree rather than a snack. So there’s your culinary lesson of the day!
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A year ago: Wednesday Breakfast Scones
Two years ago: Almond Cranberry Cookies

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Lately I’m sounding like a broken record – seems like every recipe is a winner. Five star. This one is no exception. And it’s another one of those recipes that has nothing but ordinary food in it. Italian sausage, onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, broth, canned cannellini beans, orzo, then some fresh basil and Parmesan cheese. With the exception of the beans and orzo, it’s a lot like spaghetti sauce. But don’t forget that anything you make is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. That means, in this case, using good quality Italian sausage. Fresh garlic. Oh yes, there’s a bit of bacon in this too.

It doesn’t take all that long to prepare this soup, either. The recipe is yet another Phillis Carey one. Wow, that gal is one stupendously good cook. I liked this at the cooking class, and liked it almost more so when I made it myself. I used Niman Ranch no-nitrate/nitrite bacon. I used Italian specialty meat market sausage. I used high quality frozen beef broth and some of Penzey’s concentrated pork broth. Trader Joe’s canned beans. Muir Glen fire-roasted canned tomatoes. Real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Fresh basil leaves. I made a double batch – made enough for entertaining friends, and two portions for freezing, and some for another meal this week. If you make this as a main course, you probably won’t get 8 servings. You’ll have no trouble getting rid of it, I guarantee.
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A year ago: Chicken Hamburgese
Two years ago: Heavenly Cream Cheese Brownies (yum, makes my mouth water, guess I need to make these again soon)

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A couple of weeks ago we organized a dinner out with a group of friends. A group that enjoys good food!  And we’d all talked about the movie, Julie & Julia a couple of weeks earlier. At the time we were still living in summer heat, so none of us felt much like making the Beef Bourguignon. So, I called Laurent & Lisa Ferre, the owners of a country French restaurant, The Pleasant Peasant, near the Orange County airport. Our favorite restaurant, as it so happens. It’s a country French bistro, and the prices reflect that country influence. Your dinner bill will not break the bank.

The Pleasant Peasant has been a part of my hubby’s regular routine for about 30 years. Back to when the restaurant first opened. As Dave explains it, as a salesman (he sold computer chips for Intel Corp. for a good part of his career – and he wouldn’t say it, but I will, he was very good at it) he always needed a good restaurant where he was “known.” The kind of eatery where, if he called at 10 on Friday mornings, he could always be assured they’d make a table available for him for lunch. Even if they were full. And, having a discriminating palate, he wasn’t about to make Mimi’s, or Marie Calender’s his go-to restaurant. Heck no. He had an expense account, so usually he could manage going to a nicer, more upscale restaurant. (Can you guess, this was in the 80’s and 90’s.)

The way Dave tells it, if he wanted to take an electronics buyer or a design engineer to lunch, he’d call and leave a voice message, “Meet me for a chicken today?” That was code for – I’ll meet you at the Pleasant Peasant at 11:45 and we’ll share lunch and a half-liter of wine (served in a ceramic chicken).  Now Dave is retired and we mostly go there for dinner, but they’re still open for lunch Monday-Friday.

So we knew when we asked Laurent if he’d prepare Beef Bourguignon for our group, he’d do a stellar job of it. Indeed he did. The French beef stew is not available on their menu, and Laurent shook his head vigorously when I suggested he put it there, especially at the moment because of the popularity of the movie. He says it’s too labor intensive. And perhaps it is, so we were especially happy he’d prepare it for our group. He used his own recipe (probably very similar to Julia Child’s) with carrots, mushrooms and pearl onions. And a roux (butter and flour browned in a heavy skillet, which is not part of Julia’s recipe). Laurent served the beef with just perfectly steamed potatoes, and we had a little bite  of them with every bite of stew. Oh my, yum. Laurent makes his own beef stock, and probably the red wine contributed to its fabulous rich flavor. We all slurped up every bite.

Pictured above – the Meatloaf Wellington, one of my favorite things on the menu. For all dinners, you have a choice of their delicious green salad (with grated carrot and raw beet on top) served always with their French tarragon dressing. The dressing that occasionally I buy from them just because it’s so good. (No, sadly, I don’t have the recipe.) Or their soup of the day, gazpacho or French Onion soup. Good crusty rolls along with pate butter and plain butter are part of the regular menu. The soup or salad is included with every entree.

When Dave and I go there, we order a variety of their menu items – the fabulous Laurent-smoked salmon served with a green bean and salad side (at lunch) or a cold mixed vegetable salad (at dinner). Or one of their on-special fish (halibut, tilapia, sea bass usually) with a variety of French sauces. Or their sand dabs, which is one of the most popular items on their menu. Or the meatloaf Wellington. It’s like a beef Wellington, except Laurent makes a great meatloaf center – I don’t know what he does to that meatloaf but it’s not like any meatloaf I know how to make – it’s richer, less dense somehow – but prepared in the same manner as a fillet mignon version of the Wellington (wrapped in puff pastry). But I also like the chicken too.

The rack of lamb (Dave thinks their lamb racks are the best of any place around). And a lamb shank that’s so tender you can’t believe it.  Salmon sorrel as well. A steak. Sometimes pork is on the menu in a variety of ways. And on rare occasions Laurent makes a pot roast that is better than any pot roast I’ve ever, ever made. If he has it, I always order that. There’s a smattering of pasta too on the menu, and several appetizers (including escargot). Pictured above right, the Rack of Lamb.

Pictured left, the Poulet Champignon, not on the menu, but if you ask, they might make it for you.

A few years ago the restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times wrote this about The Pleasant Peasant:

“. . . you’ll still find the same honest French cooking Ferre has been doing here all along. Ferre spent five years in the kitchens of Alain Chapel, a three-star Michelin restaurant near Lyons, and many more cooking in his native Brittany. This man isn’t trendy or creative; he’s just a solid craftsman. And his menu is a bargain. No other French restaurant around here gives you such quality for the price as the Pleasant Peasant.”

If you’re interested in dessert, about half the time we splurge and order profiteroles. Now here’s another story – – sorry this post is so long, but there’s a lot to say about the Pleasant Peasant. We’ve been ordering the profiteroles there for years and years and years. You know what they are . . . small cream puffs, top cut off, center removed and filled with rich vanilla ice cream, top replaced, then the whole thing drizzled with Laurent’s uber-rich, silky chocolate sauce. All I know is that he adds a bit of espresso to it and that he uses a good French chocolate. After all these years of going there, that’s all I know. I always wish I could lick the plate. An order of profiteroles is usually four, but if you are very nice, they might give you a smaller order.  They also have other desserts, but for us, there’s nothing else except the profiteroles.

Laurent is French born, from Brittany. He met Lisa when she was doing an internship (hotel & restaurant school at Cal Poly here in California) at a restaurant in Orleans. She brought him home with her when her internship was completed. They married shortly thereafter and have owned the Pleasant Peasant ever since. Laurent cooked under the tutelage of Alain Chapel, a very famous French chef, and that’s why Laurent is able to serve the Lamb Shanks with the Alain Chapel designation. The lamb is a regular on the menu. So, if you go there, be sure to tell them Carolyn & Dave said hello!

The Pleasant Peasant
4251 Martingale Way
Newport Beach, California

Reservations suggested, phone: 949-955-2755

Lunch: Monday-Friday; Dinner: Monday-Saturday (the restaurant is a little hard to find, so you might look it up on a map before you go)

And in case you hadn’t seen Julia Child’s recipe for her Beef Bourguignon, here it is:
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A year ago: Brown Sugar Cake
Two years ago: Leek, Kielbasa & Sausage Soup

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Doesn’t look like all that much, does it? Like maybe vanilla ice cream. But oh, it’s not. Nothing like vanilla. Other than the color. My friend Cherrie brought this a week or so ago when we had the Woodford Pudding. It was just PERFECT with it. You see, the sour cream ice cream, as you might imagine, has a bit of a tangy edge to it, just like the sour cream does. It’s mostly sour cream in the mix, after all. The recipe came from the Food Network, from a Gale Gand show, apparently. It has 4 ingredients: sour cream, half and half, sugar and lemon juice. No eggs, no egg yolks, not even vanilla! No time spent making a custard. If you have a good ice cream machine, you can make this up in no time flat.  You don’t even have to chill the mixture, just whisk it together in a bowl and pour it into the ice cream machine. My thought: this is best served WITH a dessert, not all by itself. Although it’s sweet like ice cream, that sour cream twang might put off some appetites if you ate it solitary. But try it!
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A year ago: Mexican Rice and Chicken Tacos
Two years ago: Grilled Mozzarella Bread Skewers

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Pork tenderloin is a favorite of ours. It’s lean. Tender. Quick to cook. Not as much flavor as some of the more fatty cuts of the pig, but good if prepared correctly (read: not overcooked) and usually with some kind of sauce on top or a salsa/relish on the side.  Phillis Carey prepares it often in her cooking classes. This recipe is a keeper. It meets all the criteria – lean, quick, flavorful, and has a sauce/gravy to go with it. An easy pan sauce using apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.

Soooo, here’s what you do: rub a bunch of Dijon mustard on the pork tenderloin, along with some salt and pepper. Into a hot pan it goes – to brown on as many sides as the tenderloin seems to have. Here’s a picture of that step.

Once browned, insert a meat thermometer in it, kind of angled in so the tip of the point is – hopefully – in the center of the thickest part of the meat. It goes into a very hot (425) oven to roast for a very short time – like 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile get the ingredients together for the sauce – some cider vinegar, more Dijon and some good (real) maple syrup. You remove the pork when it reaches 150 (for pink). If you like it cooked more, then continue until it reaches 155. The meat rests briefly (tented with foil) while you deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Then you add the mustard and maple syrup. Be SURE to use a whisk to break up the mustard – if you don’t you’ll have bunches of cooked clumps of mustard in the sauce. Not good! Slice the meat and drizzle the sauce on top.

My friend Cherrie prepared this dish a few nights ago and she made a couple of changes to the sauce – she added a bit of cream to the sauce and also a touch of arrowroot, which thickened it. I also think that when I make it again – which I will – I’ll make half again more sauce. There wasn’t quite enough, I thought, so I increased it in the recipe below.
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A year ago: Dinner at Bistro 33 near Folsom
Two years ago: Pumpkin Cake in a Mold (pumpkin shape)

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The salmon didn’t take all that long to make. And it was really scrumptious. It has a sweet side, but often salmon can handle some sweet. Remember when salmon on a plank was so popular? Often

served with a fruit based sauce like blueberries or lingonberries. This is similar. The recipe was from a Tyler Florence program on the Food Network (from 2005, recipe no longer available online).

He explained that slow roasting salmon retains more of its moisture – and all the good oils. It makes the salmon more succulent. This was baked at 225 F for about 20-23 minutes. And that’s not a typo, it really is baked at TWO TWENTY FIVE.  The rule of thumb at that temperature is 20-25 minutes per inch of thickness rather than the normal 10 minutes per inch. These wild Coho salmon fillets were just under an inch thick, so the timing was just perfect.

Here you see the salmon fillets just out of the oven. I determine whether salmon is cooked through by the amount of the white stuff – whatever it is – that bubbles up through the fish. This was JUST cooked through. The dark spots are the chipotle chile pieces. Note that I used some of the chiles too, not just the sauce (because when I froze the contents of the canned chipotle in adobo sauce into individual pepper pieces, most of the sauce was dissipated. I didn’t keep the sauce – now I’ll need to save it with future cans since I’ll be making this again). But we didn’t dislike the little pieces of chipotle – maybe didn’t look so attractive, is all.

Above is the sauce – it’s VERY simple to make – white wine, fresh grated ginger, sugar and lime juice, reduced about a third, then butter and cornstarch added in, with green onion tops added just before serving. The sauce took about 10 minutes to make, max. The recipe indicated to broil the fish just at the end with some of the reserved chipotle sauce just until it browns. I forgot that step – I probably would have liked that, as the fish was truly soft cooked. So if you want an easy and very good salmon preparation (and appropriate for guests), try this one.
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A year ago: Chorizo & Eggs (breakfast or brunch)
Two years ago: Pizza with Chicken, Red Onion, Olives & Pesto

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I was totally prepared to be ho-hum about this dish. Until I took my first bite, that is. Then I ate every single solitary rice kernel on the plate. It makes a delicious side dish, or if you’re inspired to eat a meal without a meaty main dish, this is the answer. This isn’t vegetarian, because it does contain pancetta and chicken broth. I suppose you could leave those out, but am not sure it would be all that good. But then, vegetarians are used to eating some foods without the intense flavors provided by meat. So maybe it would be fine! Oh yes, it also contains a moderate amount of butter too. And the saffron – when Phillis Carey prepared it at the class, she meant to put in a pinch of saffron. When she dipped into it, though, her fingers grabbed a gob of it – probably more like 2-3 teaspoons. Not only did it color the risotto – that lovely rosy yellow gold that saffron does – but it also gave it HUGE flavor. So in the recipe below I increased the saffron. We had the leftovers a few nights later. Oh my goodness were they ever GOOD. Not quite as creamy, but almost. I could have just eaten THAT for dinner.
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My iPhone didn’t take half-bad pictures, in the early evening, while it was still light outside, with just indoor light. It must have an automatic adjust for light. I know the above doesn’t look like much, but it’s the view from our seats in this restaurant. Haven Gastropub is new. It’s in Old Town Orange, here in Orange County. The city isn’t the “the city” in Orange County like you might think, since it’s Orange (city) in Orange County). Actually there is no real central city, as the County is made up of about 20 or more small cities – Orange, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Lake Forest, San Clemente, Brea, Tustin, Irvine, Laguna, and the more famous Newport Beach. I’ve only named a few of them. But Orange is one of the historic districts in our county. Old town Tustin also has an historic district (near where we live). At one time Tustin thought it was going to be “the” hub of the area, but somebody decided to locate the main train station in Orange and Santa Ana and Tustin was bypassed. But those old towns are still much as they were when the railroads were built.

There’s a “circle,” now called the Orange Plaza, with 4 main streets leading off the large round-about that used to be called the Circle. For about a block in each direction there are small independent stores (oh yes, a Starbuck’s too), with a few tea places, cafes, gift shops, and lots and lots of antique and bric-a-brac shops that I usually avoid.

Green salad with sliced pears and rum-raisins

Bouillabaisse in a light creamy broth

Lamb shepherd's pie with oodles of cheese on top

Corned beef sliders & fries

This restaurant took over a space from another restaurant that just closed. We’re thrilled they did, since we HAVE no gastropubs in our county. HAD none, that is. We may become regulars at this new place. Don’t know what a gastropub is? They’re supposedly old news in lots of places, so 2005, I guess. Okay. A gastro-pub is gastronomical – meaning tasty cuisine – and pub obviously means it has wine and beer. And that’s about it. Often gastropubs have small plates of things, or at least they usually offer some smaller dishes. Not many, really, of anything. Haven has a one-page menu and a one-page wine/bear menu. They do have 4 dinner items that run upwards from $20. We both ordered a glass of white wine – I didn’t happen to like my Sauvignon Blanc, but I’m very picky about what S.B. I like. I drank some of it with my dinner – it just wasn’t a good sipping wine.

Dave drank his and mine and liked both. We shared a green salad with pears and some rum-soaked raisins, Dave ordered their bouillabaisse, and I ordered lamb shepherd’s pie. It was absolutely delicious. It must have had lots of really good stuff in it (read: butter, cheese, oil, fat, whatever) since I slurped up every bite in the casserole. The picture doesn’t look like much, but trust me, it was super. Dave wanted to drink the last few slurps from his big soup bowl – he thought the broth was exceptional. At the table next to us they ordered the corned beef sliders – the plate was huge – 3 big sliders with Haven’s home-cured corned beef dripping out the sides of the buns, and a mammoth mound of pommes frites. And just because, I ordered their tarte tatin too, with a little globe of ice cream on the side (they make their own).

Individual tarte tatin & ice cream

If you didn’t get my drift – the food was fabulous. I can’t wait to go back. We went on a Friday night (early – 6pm) and had no trouble finding a seat. By the time we left at 7:45 the joint was absolutely jumping with people waiting outside to get in. We went at the right time. Next time we’ll go on a weeknight, probably. But back there we WILL go. Soon.

Haven Gastropub
190 S. Glassell #C&D
Orange, CA 92866
(714) 221-0680, Open 7 days, 11 am – 2 am; Chef: Greg Daniels; Owners: Will Dee & Jeff Hall

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With an empty cookie pantry (that’s the freezer in my house), I thought about the olive oil Madeleines I made earlier this year at a bakery cooking class. And with my recent success altering a recipe for cupcakes (making the pumpkin gingerbread muffins more tender) I decided I’d try making Olive Oil ORANGE Madeleines. With orange juice handy I reduced down a cup of orange juice to nothing much more than a tablespoon or two. Then I added milk to equal the amount of liquid called for in the recipe.

I do think these cookies have too much oil, so when I make them next time I’m going to try removing about 2 T. of olive oil and see how they taste. When you pick up a cookie, you end up with a tiny film of olive oil on your fingers. But the flavor is nice. And next time I’ll use LIGHT olive oil to reduce some of the olive-y flavor. The olive oil isn’t objectionable, by any means, but I’d like to try it that way. And because you can see the little brown spots on the bottom of the cookies, I think I’d reduce the oven temp by about 25 degrees too.

The cookies are good. The orange is just a hint – I expected it to be more prominent, but maybe that’s a good thing! I’ve made notes in the recipe about what I’d try next time.
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Two years ago: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

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