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.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Chorizo & Eggs (breakfast or brunch)
Two years ago: Pizza with Chicken, Red Onion, Olives & Pesto

Tweet

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.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

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

Tweet

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.
printer-friendly PDF

Two years ago: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Tweet

I’m SO ready for fall weather. We’ve had a few days of cooler weather – very welcomed since October is often a warm month for us here in Southern California. As soon as I heard we were going to have a day with a high of 69 degrees, well, it needed to be a soup day. We’d offered to take dinner to our son’s home, and it needed to get cooked and finished by about 4pm, so I wasted no time at all getting this soup cookin’. I had a pork shoulder in the freezer, so that defrosted in the morning, and into the crockpot this went. No browning of the meat or onions. Just pile in all the stewing ingredients and let it burble away for a few hours.

You can see some of the nice ciabatta bread sopping up the juice.

This soup was very easy. Pork, onion, some prosciutto, some bacon, broth (I used Penzey’s pork broth, which is VERY flavorful, although you can use canned beef broth), later some rutabaga and kale or Swiss chard, and some cannellini beans.  Served over a thick slice of country bread that was  toasted under the broiler. See? Easy. You do need to remove the pork shoulder at some point (once it’s cooked) and shred it in coarse pieces. It gets added back in at the end just to heat through. And you do need to clean the Swiss chard, remove the center ribs, then chop it up coarsely. I used canned beans, just because they’re easier. I bought a nice loaf of sourdough bread (whole) and cut thick pieces, broiled those just to get them brown, then they went into the soup bowl. Then you just ladle the soup over the bread. The thick pieces of bread, although they soaked up the broth big time, the crispy edges still had some texture, which I liked a lot. We all thought this soup was a winner. A keeper. It should freeze well, although I don’t have enough hardly to freeze since I gave half the leftovers to our kids. We have enough for another dinner. I added some Parmesan cheese on top the 2nd time I served it (the pictures are from those seconds), although the cheese is not in the recipe.

The recipe was out of a soup cookbook I have, but I’ve changed the recipe so much, it’s not really James Patterson’s recipe anymore. But the concept is. His recipe called for beef brisket. I didn’t want to use beef, but pork. So I improvised some. Whether the Spanish really make a soup with pork shoulder, I’m not certain, but I decided to give them the credit for it – it’s called Caldo Gallego in that country. The recipe below is for stovetop cooking, but am sure you can figure out easily enough how to adapt it to a crock pot, as I did. My crock pot insert will go right on the stove, which is what I did to cook the rutabaga and the Swiss chard at the end. Otherwise in a crock pot you’d want to add those ingredients about 30-45 minutes earlier, maybe longer. So anyway, go get yourself some pork shoulder, some chard and make a soup. I’m going to be making this again soon, with fresh pork, then I’ll divide it up for freezing. For those cooler winter nights when I don’t feel like cooking. You probably think I never have those kinds of nights, but I DO.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Traveling near Mt. Shasta
Two years ago: Anise Pound Cake (a specialty of the American Southwest)

Tweet

Did you know that there is (supposedly) a real shortage of canned pumpkin this fall season? About 10 days ago I went to two of the big grocery stores, and except for the pumpkin pix mix (the one that has sugar and spices already added in, which I never buy) the shelf labeled canned pumpkin, Libby’s, was bare. I was concerned.

Then the info was also relayed at a cooking class this week. That put me in a pre-deprived pumpkin state. So I made a trip to my favorite, small, independent grocery store. To those of you – my friends and locals here in Orange County, I found some at Pacific Ranch Market. They had about a case on their shelves, and I bought 6 of the big cans. So far as I can tell, Libby’s doesn’t make the small cans anymore. So if you are a baker of pumpkin pies or anything else pumpkin, I’d highly advise that you stock up on canned pumpkin – if you can find it. Trader Joe’s does carry organic pumpkin, but I don’t like theirs. They don’t carry anything but their brand, and it is on their shelves as of my last visit to the store. But it’s one of the few things I don’t like at TJ’s. In desperation, I suppose I’d use it, but for now I have enough pumpkin to last me through this season, maybe next. Pumpkin has a 2-year shelf life, according to the stamp on the can.

Tweet

A happy camper am I. Last week, mother nature provided us with a few days of temps only in the low 80’s. Hallelujah. And the nights have been cooler too, which makes for better sleeping. My mind had been turning to soup already even with the summer temps. So when this recipe appeared in our local paper recently, credited to Karen Collard of Anaheim, CA, it sounded so easy. And tasty. In fact, it’s so easy I almost didn’t clip out the recipe. But, I’m telling you, as simple as it is, the flavor is really good.

The other thing – this soup may not look like much, but appearance doesn’t matter. Trust me on this one. The original recipe was intended to be very low fat – just cabbage, onions, chicken broth, and a packaged gravy mix mixed with some milk. I decided to ramp it up a little by adding some spicy Italian sausage and some parsley for garnish. Otherwise the recipe is essentially the same. You could substitute turkey sausage (although I wouldn’t advise it as the pork/sausage provides a ton of good flavor), or eliminate it. I added a bit of olive oil too, to caramelize the onions just a little bit. This doesn’t cook a long time – in fact I think it’s better if it’s NOT cooked for hours. You still want just a bit of texture to the cabbage. But what it is, is EASY. Trust me on this. You’ll have dinner on the table in about 45 minutes.

It’s a rare day when I use any packaged mix for anything. I had to shop at a couple of grocery stores to even FIND the McCormick sausage flavored country gravy mix. Look in the big grocery stores for it. It just made the preparation so simple. It’s mixed with more liquid (milk and chicken broth instead of water) to give it a soupy consistency. So, go make this, okay? We just LUVVVVED it. I had a hard time keeping my tasting spoon out of the pot as it simmered at the end. We had leftovers two nights later and it was just as good, maybe better, the way soups often are. I gave the recipe to my friend Cherrie, who made it a night or two later. She and her husband slurped up two bowls of it the first night. More testimony that this is a keeper.
printer-friendly PDF

Two years ago: Drop Biscuits (delicious, rich and easy)

Tweet

Last week my friend Cherrie and I attended a cooking class – yes, yet another cooking class.  We’re seriously Phillis Carey fans. And it’s the rare recipe that we don’t just l-o-v-e. And this class was no exception. I’ll be sharing some of the recipes in coming days or weeks. I’m going to make every single recipe, and will wait until I do to post the recipes.

The dessert – these cupcakes – though, needed just a little bit of help. Cherrie and I both liked the flavors very much, but the cupcake was dry. Too dry. Now, I suppose, the kitchen staff may have over baked them. We saw a few set aside that had some fairly major cracks in the top. So perhaps they were. Or, they were baked at a higher temp than they should have. But knowing that a cake texture can be improved, I set about trying to fix the recipe.

First I went to Ratio, the book by Michael Ruhlman, that synthesizes almost all baking things to a simple ratio and preparation or cooking method. This was my first opportunity to put some of the tenets in this book to use. These are the rules that every trained chef knows by heart. They can recite them at a moment’s notice.

So here’s your cooking lesson for today. We’ll talk about the difference between a pound cake and a sponge cake. In this instance I adapted Phillis’ recipe to make it more sponge-like than pound cake-like. It wasn’t hard.

Note that there are plus signs ( +) and colons ( : ) . That means that you combine 1 part butter with 1 part sugar and mix. Then you add 1 part egg and mix. Then add 1 part flour and mix. That a pound cake makes.

Here you’ll see the MEASUREMENTS are the same – identical – but the method of mixing them is different. You start with egg, then add sugar, then flour, then butter. And that a sponge cake makes.

In the instructions in Ruhlman’s book he suggests that to get a more spongy, lighter or taller cake, add more eggs, more baking powder, and/or cake flour. So, that’s exactly what I did. And I changed the mixing method as well to the sponge cake type.

So just a little bit more info about the cupcakes themselves. Great Fall flavors – with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Some molasses too and dark brown sugar. Then the batter is tempered with sour cream (which becomes a liquid in the chemistry of baking). The cream cheese icing is very straightforward, but has the addition of lemon zest and lemon juice. So even though the frosting is sweet, it has a lemony tang to it. Delicious. Our older grandkids would love these if they were around to try them.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Salishan Lodge (a resort hotel in Oregon)
Two years ago: Tuscan Chicken Soup (not a chicken soup, but beef, and yes, that’s what it’s called)

Tweet

The visual above isn’t nearly good enough for this delicious side dish. Pale colored food just doesn’t photograph very well. But, this is SO good. So rich. So bad for us. It’s a good thing I only had that small portion to eat at the cooking class with Phillis Carey, as I’d have been digging into the casserole dish for seconds. You can see the edge of the Filet Mignon above it, there. With it’s nice pink/red middle. The two are a marriage made in heaven. In case you didn’t read the other post, the meat is a Filet Mignon with Rich Balsamic Wine Hollandaise Sauce.

Nothing about the dish is difficult or all that unusual. It’s just the method that’s slightly different. You slice (with a mandoline, please) the potatoes directly into the cream and chicken broth, cook them until they’re just done, then they get layered in a casserole with some lightly caramelized yellow onions, and you add some whole-milk Mozzarella and some good Maytag or Danish blue cheese, along with the cream and chicken broth the potatoes were cooked in. Do crumble up the cheese well so you can spread it around evenly. Every serving needs to have some blue in it. You do dirty up a few dishes making this, but if you’re going to serve beef, this is the dish to go with it. Ideally, make this a couple of hours before you start the final cooking for the dinner, as you’d like to refrigerate this for an hour or two, then remove it from the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so before baking. The casserole is baked until golden on top, then let it sit to cool for about 15 minutes before serving. The potatoes will still be piping hot. Guaranteed raves all around.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: A B&B in Portland, Oregon, Rose Cottage
Two years ago: Portuguese Sweet Bread (a sweet loaf type bread, reminiscent of King’s Hawaiian bread)

Tweet

I know. That’s not orzo. The orzo version, from the cooking class last week with Phillis Carey wasn’t such a great photo. So when I went to my pantry, I had no orzo. So baby farfalle was what it had to be. I always have kalamata olives in my refrigerator. And I try to keep a can of plain artichoke hearts in my pantry. Plus I always have Feta cheese too. And shallots and Italian parsley.

This dish is just yummy. Of course, it does have some butter in it, but I used less than Phillis suggested and added some olive oil. My DH just luvvved this dish. He wanted seconds. He wanted to know when we were going to have the leftovers. Never fear, dearest, you’ll get some!

Phillis served this side dish with some stuffed chicken breasts. I’m going to make those in a few days, so will share that recipe when I’ve fine-tuned it a bit. But this pasta dish was really, really good. Phillis said you could use dill instead of thyme. And you may not need any salt added, since the kalamata olives and the Feta both have some inherent sodium. So add pepper, but no salt. You can make this ahead if you want – earlier in the day – and just reheat in a casserole dish in the oven for 15-20 minutes. But don’t let it become dry – it’s not tasty that way, so add a bit of water (more of the past water) to keep it moist. I served this with chicken and a nice green salad. I cut the artichoke hearts into smaller pieces and I also removed a few of the outer leaves of them – sometimes I find tough leaves in canned artichoke hearts. so I carefully picked them over and pulled off a few and discarded them. Do rinse the artichoke hearts – that canned water stuff is not very palatable. And you could add more of anything – more shallots, more olives, more artichoke hearts, more Feta even. You could also eliminate things you don’t like. Substitute if you want. I’m sure if the cheese is there, it would be good just that way!
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: traveling in Walla Walla
Two years ago: Escarole, Belgian Endive & Apple Salad

Tweet