This Ain't No Pie Eatin' Contest...

The title to this post is, unfortunately, what Jim thinks of when he needs a metaphor for when someone is writing a check that his/her body can no longer cash (another mixed metaphor itself) from the cinematic tour de force that was Rocky V:

[Tommy Gunn and George Duke show up outside the bar before the climactic fight scene]
Overweight Drinker: Yo Rock, you need some help?
Rocky: No, guys; ain't no pie eating contest.

This time, however, he and Peta could have used some help in the pie making contest that went down at the Gallo Wineries "family picnic".

Although we had made a Spiced Plum Pie with Tender Pie Crusts on a trial run to bring down to our friends Peter and Kim's dinner (mango salad, chicken satay and red snapper fresh rolls, yum!) last weekend, we were not sure they the complex flavor of the pie would appeal to the palates of the judges. We got all of these free plums after gleaning the tree of a family nearby and gave some to them, the lion's share to the Marin Food Bank and kept the busted ones with which to make jams, pies and sauces. Maybe if we hadn't run out of cinnamon for the pie it would have been a different story.

Anyhooooo. We made Jim's "go to" naughty pie, Lemon Chess Pie with Tender Pie Crust. We couldn't find any blackberries at the store, so we did the Blackberry Compote with raspberries. The compote was more of a coulis really but it was/is tasty (more on why we have so much leftover in a minute). Here's the non-definitive difference between the two. We also served the pie with whipped cream which we had to the side, on ice, with the coulis. Out of seven pies, we did not even place! And one of the pies was a frozen pie which became a pool of goo in the Sonoma County sun. Ouch.

Well, here is the analysis (AAR for any military people) with what went wrong/right with the pie contest.

• We used a different corn meal that was very coarsely ground and thus gritty. Fortunately, most of this fraction remained in the little bit that we had saved for our mini-pie the next day.
• We put out a demonstration piece to show how to add the coulis and the whipped cream, but no one that I saw, added it. If you need to give instructions on how to eat your food, you are wrong.
• The color of the raspberry coulis did not work as well (or at all) with the bright lemon of the pie. The blackberries would have been much more palatable.
• The crust of the winner was super flaky, not tender like ours, and was definitely (OK, maybe not definitely) cooked with crisco or lard.

We know what to do for next year. Watch that waistline!!

Jim and Peta

The Shanking of the Lambs

Braised Lamb Shanks with Coriander, Fennel, and Star Anise

After the blowout tapas dinner party, Jim was spent but he had promised to cook Peta a great lamb shanks meal. He had cooked it for his friends Amelia and Malinda who liked it enough to bail on going out for Peruvian food and then for his mom and dad. Even Jim Sr., the picky eater that he is, liked it.

This recipe takes a loooong time to cook and we did it on the stove top rather than in the oven. It can also be difficult to find the shanks, but the unctuousness in the final sauce is worth the hunt. Take your butcher up on any offer to crack the shanks.

The only problem with the meal was one of the ingredents. The leeks looked "funny". Does that mean "woody". We're not sure. But the texture of the cooked leeks was all wrong, so we ended up picked them out. We put some in the freezer and will be eating leftover for a while...

Jim and Peta

PS: We'll blog about the party soon. We swear it!!

The First Bounty of Spring

We've finally gotten something other than kale, chard, fava beans and cabbage and this time it come from our garden at home, not the Stanford Organic Farm! It was... wait for it... RADISHES! OK, you can put away the trumpets. Boring, right?

Radishes are always so easy to grow, so fast (24 days) and so different from the winter veggies that you have to plant them. But then, once you harvest them, what do you do with them? Well, here's a recipe, Radishes with Radish Greens and Parmesan over Pasta, that's pretty tasty. Just scroll right past those other, horrid recipes to get this one.

Did we add a Portobello mushroom to this recipe? Oh, yes.
Did we add a bit of ham? Of course we did!
Did we add a bit more parmesan than the recipe called for? Slap the 'cuffs on us. Guilty as charged.

But did we eat through our 14 radishes? Damn skippy.

Jim and Peta

I Don't Care About My Cholesterol...

Here's a super fast, super tasty and naughty yet light weekday meal. It's Scallops with Buerre Noisette and Hazelnuts over Arugula. We've had this meal three times, changed nothing and always enjoyed it. It's pretty cheap, even with the scallops, especially if you grow your own arugula, which is a snap anyway. Maybe about $12 for two people?

The arugula adds bulk and makes this dish "seem" "healthy". Also, in the words of Billy Dee Williams when speaking of Colt 45 Malt Liqour, "Works ev'ry time."

We usually brown a whole stick of butter and use only half. The rest Jim puts on his toast because apparently he doesn't fear an early grave.

Jim and Peta

Korean Bul Gogi

We've had some homemade kim chi in the refrigerator for some time now and Peta wanted to take care of it and suggested a meal that we have cooked before: beef bul gogi. It's a simple sweet/salty dish with scallions served over rice. We used venison in place of beef, as usual and the results were good. It's actually the second time that we've used this recipe and, although it is good, we might try another. There is a comment on the recipe above that states that the recipe is un-Americanized and more "Korean" than others. So we're in the market for a different and perhaps Americanized version of bul gogi.

Drop us a line if you have one!

Jim and Peta

From France to... Greece?

Last night, Peta and Jim decided to make a few cocktails and then cook spanakopita, essentially a spinach and feta pie with thin phyllo dough.

We didn't have any ouzo to match up with the spanakopita and we're in need of a trip to BevMo to get other types of liquor. All we really had was some brandy. Hmm. What to do? We had read about the French 75 and had done a taste test two weeks before. There is agreement as to the meaning of the name: the "75" refers to a popular artillery used in the late 1800s - early 1900s. I like the story of the supposed creator, WWI ace Raoul Lufbery, liking champagne but needed more of a kick -- the kind of kick that you'd get from a Canon de 75 Modèle; however, there is a question as to whether gin or cognac is the liquor of choice. We like them both, but they are totally different drinks. We'll take the original French 75 to mean a cognac/champagne cocktail, although the gin drink is good as well.

For the spanakopita, we used Tyler Florence's recipe here.

Changes made:

• We didn't use any coriander or chives and we didn't sprinkle the oregano in between the layers of phyllo but rather added it into the green mixture.
• We used a mixture of butter and EVOO for spreading between phyllo layers.
• We added wine instead of lemon since we ran out
• We added some aging puréed kale to the green mixture.
• Did not make triangle but went with the lasagna style
  

Observations:
We cooked the spanakopita for 25 minutes at 350, but had to add time and increase the temperature to 375 until the layers had separated (puffed up) and browned.

Pretty tasty in general, but it took way longer than we had anticipated. This is not a weekday meal! Making some fried rice today with leftover rice from the bul gogi we made yesterday.

What to do with all this venison?

Peta was getting home late on Monday night, so Jim pulled out some ground venison and revved up an old stand-by: Sausage Risotto with Greens. This is the third time we've done the recipe and have changed it the same way every time as we recall.

Jim bagged a nice deer in Wyoming last Fall and it netted about 60 pounds of meat, most of which he had ground for versatility, not a great call in retrospect. You can break a glass, but it's much more difficult to un-break a glass. The meat is venison, as we said, cut with 10% pork fat. We added probably twice as much as the recipe calls for, added one chopped Portobello mushroom and threw in some dry vermouth, a usual suspect when we make risotto. We found mustard greens at the store this time but the dish does fine with the even more bitter dandelion greens.

We had a cup each last night because it was late and it made 10 cups total. Jim had two cups for lunch and that lasted until he got home.

We've gotten on the Livestrong website (even though Lance is a doper) and started to track the calories, etc. of the food we eat and prepare as well as our calories burned through exercise. Total calories of the Sausage Risotto with Greens per cup is 371.

Jim and Peta