Paying My Debts
11-Feb-2006
As you may know I recently lost a bet to LennDevours. While I am not especially happy about this, it was time to honor the bet and send the bottle of wine I’d put on the line. So it went out in the mail this morning. I am pretty sure, however, that next year when the Steelers don’t even make it to the division playoffs, that Lenn will want to add his support to the Seahawks – I mean how could he not want to??? So in order to aid him in his conversion I added a nice Seahawk helmet magnet to the outside of the box. More to come…
Steak Wrap
09-Feb-2006
This dish actually came about in sort of an odd way. I had been thinking about what to pair with Rosé for today’s Happy Hour at Home post and was thinking about something lighter, when I happened to read a post by Beau at Basic Juice where he had paired Rosé with a hearty sandwich. Hmmm.
So I decided to try a little different tact which worked out pretty well over all. I actually liked the wine with the steak on its own a bit better than with the wrap. You can read the wine tasting notes in today’s post, but here’s the recipe for the steak and wrap.
Grilled Marinated New York Steak Wrap
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup pinot noir
A couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 dried Thai Dragon or other hot pepper, crushed
Combine all ingredients.
Put a steak in a large ziploc bag, cover with the marinade and allow to sit for 2 – 4 hours.
Heat a grill pan over medium high heat. Remove steak from marinade, pat dry and then grill for about 6 minutes per side, depending on thickness and desired doneness.
Remove from pan and let steak rest for a few minutes. Slice in very thin slices across the grain.
To make wrap
Heat a large tortilla style wrap just until soft.
Place steak slices, guacamole or sliced avocados, sliced tomatoes, grilled onions, and sour cream on the steak. Wrap the tortilla by bringing the bottom edge up and then rolling from left to right.
Pour a glass of Rosé and enjoy!
Beverages for Valentine’s Day
08-Feb-2006
Today over on The Spirit World we are starting a week’s worth of ideas for beverages to help you celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Not just for those with significant others in their lives, Valentine’s Day should be a holiday to celebrate all the special people in your life – true loves, good friends, your steadfast family and even just the wacky, wonderful you!
Follow us as we give you ideas for cocktails; champagne and wine drinks and suggestions; and even some information on unusual beers like chocolate beer!
Today’s cocktail is the "Bloody Valentine", which is not as scary as it sounds and, in fact, is very tasty as it’s made with vodka infused with beautiful blood oranges and Parfait Amour.
Superbowl – Not the Outcome I Expected
05-Feb-2006
I’m pretty sad right now. My boys didn’t quite pull through. There were times they battled and, I’m sad to say, there were times they seemed to work against themselves. There were a few questionable calls that I would have liked to see go our way instead of the Steelers’. I’m pretty sure that first Steeler touchdown wasn’t one but you couldn’t say for sure. But really there was only one truly bad call, although it may have aided in a Steelers’ touchdown. Hasselbeck was called for an illegal block that was actually a legal tackle. That resulted in a 15 yard penalty and led to a set up for another Steeler touchdown. But if we’d played to our potential it probably would have been a non-issue. Even with all that, the score was respectable and the game was good – not one of those Superbowls where you wonder why you are bothering to watch – well, except for the commercials, of course. All week I’d been feeling bad because I had this bet with Lenn and hadn’t been able to do all the trash-talkin’ I had planned. Work was just too dang busy and unfortunately I was doing a lot of writing, so coming home and sitting and writing trash just wasn’t that appealing. Looking back that’s a little lucky – I don’t have to eat any words right now…. :-)
What I do have to do, unfortunately, is find a shipping box for my little friend pictured above. Lenn is now the proud owner of this lovely bottle of wine. Although I’m sad to lose it, I’m comforted by the fact that I’m sending it to someone who will appreciate it. That (kind of) makes up for the disappointment of our loss.
I need to go now and wallow in my sadness. Good thing we are having a break in our miserable winter weather. There is supposed to be sun tomorrow which makes this all a little easier to take. Sigh….
Just wait until next year!
Dinner at Rover’s
04-Feb-2006
Last Thursday, five friends and I took advantage of the special dinner offered at Rover’s. The special tasting menu was all from recipes in Thierry Rautureau’s recently released cookbook, "Rover’s: Recipes from Seattle’s Chef in the Hat".
The menu in the photo is wrinkled as it’s one that I asked for as we were leaving so that I could remember the meal and check out the recipes in the cookbook. I folded it up to get it inside my handbag to avoid the rain as we were leaving. Five of us had the "regular" tasting menu and one person ordered the vegetarian version. At $45 per person this had to have been the best deal in town, hands-down!
The point of this dinner was for diner’s to see that amazing food is within reach of all of us. As we enjoyed each course we frequently referred to a cookbook that one person had brought along to get autographed. The ingredients and recipes are often quite simple, although sometimes you need to allow time for certain steps. The presentation is another story but, as Thierry talked about in a class I took from him, you can easily substitute your own presentation style – the food will be just as amazingly good!
All courses from both menus were really exceptional. I can’t really pick a favorite but I will tell you that I’m now inspired to really get cooking from this cookbook. I feel a dinner party coming on!
For those of you in Seattle I highly recommend the restaurant. For those of you outside of the area (and in Seattle, too) I highly recommend that you check out this cookbook. You’ll be happy you did.
Rover’s Restaurant
2808 E. Madison
Seattle
206-325-7442
The Life of Pig: A New Blog in Town
04-Feb-2006
Tamara Murphy, chef and owner of Brasa has started a new blog. Not just any old blog but one that will chronicle the life of the pigs she uses for her restaurant, right up until they are enjoyed as dinner in her restaurant. This looks like it will be a very interesting blog. If you have any interest at all at where your food comes from you’ll probably want to check this blog frequently.
Cottechino & Lentils
02-Feb-2006
Ever since I tried Cottechino a few years ago it has become one of my favorite winter treats. I can remember the experience so clearly. It was raining and I was happy to see the line at Salumi was inside, not extending outside as it often does. The people inside were all pressing in and making room for every newcomer, cognizant of the rain outside. (Once you’ve seen their "entry" you’ll understand how tricky this is!) It was warm and a bit humid as the number of bodies and wet coats contributed to the steaminess of the situation.
Cottechino was listed as one of the specialties of the day and when it came my turn to order I asked about it. The description sounded interesting and I could tell that the guy who described it really loved the stuff. Okay, I’ll give it a try. What a great decision! This is a winter sausage, high in fat, flavored with black pepper, vanilla and nutmeg. It is extremely fragrant and both the smell and the taste warm your soul.
Since trying it that first time, I often purchase one of these lovely sausages to cook at home. A simple and rather traditional way to make it is with lentils. Last night I decided to cook it mostly in the oven, as opposed to the cooktop as I normally do. This worked really well. Again, I was working with ingredients I had on hand – I have been too lazy to go out in the pouring rain lately – so this is an extremely simple recipe. It’s nice to add a few more vegetables, like carrots and celery to the mix, but this version was still very good.
Cottechino & Lentils
1 Cottechino sausage (about 1 – 1 1/2 pounds)
1 medium onion thinly sliced
1 cup lentils (any type will do, I used Du Puy or French Green last night)
1 2/3 cup chicken stock
2 or 3 Bay leaves
Oil
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Heat the oil over medium heat until fairly warm. If desired, slightly brown the Cottechino, being very careful not to tear the thin skin. Add the onions and cook until translucent. (This would also be the time to add other veggies.) Add the lentils, Bay leaves and stock. Cover the pan and bring to a boil.
Place covered pan in oven and bake until lentils are tender, checking occasionally to ensure there is still enough stock. This will vary depending on the type of lentil. Last night I checked the pot at 20 minutes and again at 30. The lentils were done at 40 minutes and the amount of stock was exactly right.
Teriyaki Chicken Wings
02-Feb-2006
Looking for an easy appetizer for the Big Game this weekend? Head on over to The Spirit World for my latest installment of Happy Hour at Home. This week’s recipe is a super easy, baked Teriyaki Chicken Wings recipe.
WBW #18: Wine Shop Edition
01-Feb-2006
I’ve been out of the loop for the last couple months and am trying to get myself back into some of the online events that occur here in blog world. Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW) has always been one of my favorite events – I mean how can you not like an event that forces you to spend time selecting a wine, drinking it and then talking about it??
This month the host, Dr Vino, took just a little different tact. Our job was to report on a local wine shop that we connect with – for whatever reason on whatever level. At first glance this seems like an easy task… but is it?
I had a bit of a hard time with this theme for a couple of reasons. First, I think there are several great shops with really great people here in Seattle. Secondly, I rely on different shops and different people depending on what wine quest I’m following. There are some really great specialty shops in town, as well as numerous shops with a broader selection.
However, if I have to pick one place that seems to provide what I need and the knowledgeable staff to help me find it then I need to pick – well, two places. One place has just a slight advantage over the other because their breadth of offerings is more complete – but just barely.
Esquin Wine Merchants in South Seattle is a huge treasure trove of wine secrets. I can get lost in the place for an hour or two, just looking, reading the store information tags and gazing at the bottles and bottles of wine. They have become the place I go most often when I’m looking for a specific wine for dinner club or for a WBW event. Not only is their selection huge but the people who work there are friendly and knowledgeable and, maybe more importantly, not afraid to tell you when they don’t know something. The stock is amazingly diverse and each person has specific areas of expertise so there are times when I’ve been looking for some obscure wine that I’ve been asked if it would be okay if someone called me since the area expert wasn’t available at the time. As an example, wines from Lombardy come to mind. Although Lombardy produces quite a lot of wine, not that much gets imported to the US. I spent a couple of weeks trying to track down representative wines. I ended up buying most of what I needed from an Italian wine shop, but the people here at Esquin provided tons of information, called a couple suppliers provided a couple of good alternatives for me.
Similar to Esquin, Pete’s has an amazing range of wines. It’s even more amazing the first time you visit the Lake Union shop and realize that on what amounts to one and a half rows of a little express type grocery store you can find more wines from more countries and regions that just about anywhere else in town. And, I actually think the people here are more knowledgeable across the board then the Esquin folks – there are a lot of long-term folks here. They just miss out being my number one pick because even with the amazing number of wines they have they can’t compete with the expansive space that Esquin has. And this sentiment applies only to the Lake Union, the original, location. The Bellevue store has a ton of space with wines neatly organized but I think it’s hit or miss on the staff at this store. I rarely visit if I need advice, only if I pretty much know what I’m looking for.
As I mentioned there are other specialty stores that have both great selection and great staff. DeLaurenti’s has a wonderful selection of Italian wines – others, too but especially the Italians – and great people who really know the stock. If I’m looking for a Spanish wine or port then I make a beeline to The Spanish Table, with the largest selection of Spanish wines in the US and the staff to back them up.
I feel really lucky as there are so many options here in town – this post has barely scratched the surface. Many shops offer weekly wine tastings, periodic wine dinners and other events, often at minimal charge, so the opportunity to taste for yourself and learn along the way is pretty much unlimited. We have a great wine community here in Seattle and I feel lucky to have so many options.
Lamb Meatballs
31-Jan-2006
As with so many things, this tasty treat was born from simply looking at what was in the refrigerator and going from there. I used dried mint in this recipe since I had a lot of it from my summer garden. Fresh rosemary grows year round so I never dry it. I had Ras al Hanout on hand, feel free to skip it or substitute another Indian spice. Yogurt would work as well, or better than, the sour cream. I would have liked to have had chopped, cucumbers along side this but I’d just finished my last cucumber the day before.
You might consider wrapping a couple of these meatballs in pita bread. This version was very garlicky so you may want to reduce the garlic if you are not as crazy about it as I am!
This would make a good Superbowl appetizer – you could even make the meatballs a bit smaller and once baked put them on toothpicks for the perfect little bite-sized, pick-me-up treat.
Lamb Meatballs
1 lb ground lamb
1 egg
¼ cup finely ground toasted bread crumbs
2 large garlic cloves, minced
I small shallot, minced
About 2 Tbsp crumbled dried mint
About 2 Tbsp finely chopped rosemary
1 tsp Ras al Hanout
Salt and Pepper
1 egg
¼ cup finely ground toasted bread crumbs
2 large garlic cloves, minced
I small shallot, minced
About 2 Tbsp crumbled dried mint
About 2 Tbsp finely chopped rosemary
1 tsp Ras al Hanout
Salt and Pepper
½ cup sour cream
Juice from ½ lemon
Mix all ingredients, except sour cream and lemon juice, until well blended.
Preheat frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 Tbsp of oil to pan. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Form lamb mixture into balls about the size of golf balls. Place in pan and brown on all sides. When completely browned, place pan into oven and bake for 10 minutes.
While the meatballs are baking mix together the sour cream and lemon juice, using more or less lemon juice to taste. Place in small bowl.
Remove meatballs from oven, drain on paper towels then serve with the lemon sour cream.
Culinary Fool 