10th Anniversary Dinner

Originally I had the idea that we would go to New York and celebrate our tenth anniversary with a big dinner at Per Se, but then I calculated the cost of train fare, hotel, and dinner. Eek! Considering we had a great meal at Volt a few weeks ago, plus a 6-course meal at Bluegrass Tavern the night before, we decided that a somewhat fancier-than-usual home-cooked meal would be just the thing.

I fell in love with the smoked trout salad we had at Clementine a couple weeks ago, so I thought if we could find smoked trout at Neopol, I'd make a version to serve as an appetizer.

smoked trout salad and celeri remoulade on Atwater's ciabatta

While at Belvedere Market, we picked up a giant sirloin from Ceriello. They didn't have arborio rice but they did have orzo, so I my original idea of risotto became a wild mushroom orzotto.

I concocted a pan sauce with the steak's drippings, some red wine, leeks, mushrooms, and the soaking liquid from the orzotto's mushrooms and steamed some asparagus. While the steak and sauce were very good, the orzotto stole the show - it was very easy, very delicious, and much quicker to make than risotto.

Orzotto (adapted from Kelsey's Kitchen)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 shallots, minced
1 ½ cups orzo
3 cups chicken stock
1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 1/2 cup hot water for about 1/2 hour
¼ cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

salt and cracked black pepper to taste

In large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and shallot and cook until fragrant and just starting to brown. Add the orzo and stir to coat each grain with the oil. Toast the orzo for about 2 minutes, stirring often. Drain mushrooms and add to pan along with the stock. Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and cover the pan; simmer for about 8 minutes, then turn off the heat and cover the pan (the orzo will continue cooking in the residual heat and absorb the rest of the liquid). Remove from heat and stir in cream and cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Fumetto #7 - Paula's Beast Dishes

Dad's Birthday Dinner

We celebrated my Dad's birthday last weekend with a nice home-cooked meal of braised short ribs, mashed potatoes, and green beans, followed by pastel de tres leches.

The short rib recipe may go into my cookbook, so I can't share the details. Suffice it to say that they were cooked for about 5 hours and were fork tender and extremely delicious. Perhaps my best effort yet. Dad is always talking about how much he loves the short ribs at Roy's, so maybe now he'll rave about mine, instead.

The cake recipe, however, is based on one I found on teh Innernets. I modified the recipe a bit and used four kinds of milk, so technically it's a pastel de cuatro leches.

Pastel de Cuatro Leches

6 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
8 ounces sweetened condensed milk
6 ounces Coco Lopez
5 ounces evaporated milk
1/2 cup unsweetened canned coconut milk

Heat oven to 325°F.

Separate eggs. Whip whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Stir sugar into yolks and whip until thick and pale yellow. Stir in about 1/3 of the egg whites into the yolks to lighten them, then gently fold in the remaining whites.

Sift flour over the eggs. Gently fold flour into eggs just until there are no obvious streaks of flour.

Butter a 13 x 9 glass baking dish. Pour batter into the dish and bake until cake is golden, about 20-25 minutes. Cool cake for about 15 minutes.

Whisk together four milks and pour mixture evenly over cake. Cool cake for another hour or so, then cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Serve with whipped cream, shredded coconut, and Pineapple Compote.

Pineapple Compote

1 20oz can crushed pineapple in pineapple juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Place pineapple, its juices, butter and brown sugar in a saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat until most of the juices have evaporated and the mixture has thickened. Stir in cinnamon and remove from heat. Allow to cool before serving.

The pan I used was slightly bigger than 13 x 9, so the cake was fairly thin. To solve that problem, I stacked two slices with whipped cream in between. It was delicious (not as good as the cake at Talara) - but very sweet.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal, especially Dad. Happy birthday! May you have many more. :)

Flashback Friday 10.8.10

This post is from August 1, 2006.

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Childhood Food Memories - Part One

The other night, during our usual post-dinner conversation time, my husband and I discussed our favorite foods from childhood. Oh, how I'd love to taste Mom's pot roast again! And Grandma's kotlety (pork burgers), sour cream potato salad, and spaghetti and meatballs!

In addition to home-cooking, we talked about the commercially prepared products we grew up eating. Take canned pasta, for example. I would only eat Franco American Spaghettios with mini meatballs, and Raviolos. They were one of my favorite lunches, and I was only allowed to have them once every week or two. Neal liked Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, but he wasn't as picky as me about canned pasta. I tried a can of Spaghettios (now Campbell's) a few years back, out of nostalgia, and was revolted. The sauce was thicker and had an unpleasant unctuousness. One spoonful was enough; the remainder went into the trash. I am afraid to try Raviolos. Forget the rest of that stuff!

In the snack food category, we both loved original and Nacho Cheese Doritos when they first came out in the 70s. Then came more flavors and suddenly, there was too much seasoning on them for our palates. Perhaps we can chalk that up to old age maturity. (Our favorite seasoned tortilla chip is now Garden of Eatin's Red Hot Blues.)

I also had an unnatural fondness for Frito-Lay Funyuns. When I was very young, my mother made sandwiches of imported ham, iceberg lettuce, and Kraft Thousand Island dressing on rye (We ate everything on rye bread. White bread was for toasting only and was referred to, derogatorily, as wata [cotton balls].) for me and my grandmother, who was recovering from a stroke. She served Funyuns on the side. They are now inextricably linked to memories of sitting on the side of Grandma's bed and wondering when she would be able to get up and play with me again.

Bugles were another favorite, and I do still eat them on occasion. I don't think they've changed at all, but they are perhaps a little saltier than memory.

Our favorite childhood potato chips were Utz plain. Mom and I liked to eat them with vanilla ice cream, which Neal finds odd. (Maybe you do too.) He liked Utz Barbecue flavor, but I preferred the less-sweet, spicier, Wise BBQ chips. I haven't had the Wise chips since grade school, and I doubt they would be the same, but Utz chips are still crispy, golden, and delicious, and probably our current favorite plain chips. (Neal prefers the ridged type these days.) What about Pringles, you ask? I never did enjoy those fake, oversalted things (despite my love of Funyuns), but Neal will cop to liking them.

Today's kids have even more choices for salty snacking, most of which are over-seasoned for my tastes. And what's with the pre-made, multi-flavored Chex Mix? It's a far cry tastier when made at home; just omit the modern, egregious addtion of bagel chips, and use pretzel sticks instead of nuggets for an authentic taste of my childhood.

Original Chex Mix
1/4 cup Butter
1 1/4 teaspoons Seasoned salt
4 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 2/3 cups Corn Chex
2 2/3 cups Rice Chex
2 2/3 Wheat Chex
1 cup Salted mixed nuts
1 cup Pretzel sticks

Heat oven to 250°F. In ungreased large roasting pan, melt butter in oven. Stir in seasonings. Gradually stir in remaining ingredients until evenly coated.

Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool, about 15 minutes. Store in airtight container.