Eating In: Moose Stew (yes, really), Potato Bread, etc

I haven't felt this relaxed in years.


The snow has forced me to stop all the running around, all the furious "I've gotta do this" and "I'd better do that" and just enjoy my house, my yard, my dog, my kid and my snowshoes. It feels like the life I've always imagined people in small towns live. It's just not my nature to sit still, but the snow if forcing it, and I'm completely digging it.

I'm also going nutso in the kitchen. Yesterday, after snow-shoeing over to my parents house with Ruby in the backpack, I cooked up a batch of those no-bake chocolate-peanut butter-oatmeal cookies I remembered my mom baking us when we were little. My sister's 4-year old son, Zach, helped out. It took all of 10 minutes to make enough for days!

But really, the most exciting part of the weekend, cooking-wise, was making the moose stew last night.


Yep--it's made with real moose meat from a moose my dad and uncle got this past October in New Hampshire. Since my uncle lives out there, he's doling out the meat in small batches (for shipping cost reasons, I guess), but since my dad knows Ed and I love wild game (and honestly, we're really the only ones who'd go to the trouble of making a braised shoulder, or slow-cooked stew), we were gifted some stew meat and some sirloin, which went into the stew last night.

I usually cook all my stews in two steps: First, you brown the meat, slow-cook it in some wine/water/broth/herbs/onion-carrot-celery/bay leaves for a couple of hours. Everything but the meat and broth will eventually get tossed out, since the veggies become mush. This step is all about making a really yummy broth and tender, yummy meat. What I do is strain the broth into a big bowl and pick the meat out of the colander, and then return the broth and meat back into the pot. You'll see that the veggies are worthless, but if you're hungry you can salt the veggies left in the colander and snack on 'em, or make baby food with 'em.

Second, you prepare the veggies you'll actually eat in the stew, and I usually do these in steps in a separate pan, coq au vin-style. So last night I cut up a couple of russet potatoes, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and fried them up in a nonstick pan with a little olive oil until still al dente but nice and golden brown, then I put them in a bowl on the side. Next I seared my mushroom quarters in butter with fresh thyme and rosemary, then added them to the potatoes. Then the same with some hunked carrots and large-chopped onions. Cooking on med-high heat the whole time, you're really just getting some color on the veggies. Finally, you put all the veg in with the meat/broth and let it simmer for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes and carrots are tender.


I finished my stew with fresh cream and lots of black pepper and some chopped Italian parsley. It was divine.

We ate it with buttered potato bread, which Ed had made the day before. Head over here for the recipe for that easy, incredibly good bread. Unlike the moose stew, you probably have all the ingredients for the bread in the house already.


What are you cooking in this incredibly snowy weather?


[where: 98118]

Turkey Day Leftovers

We're flying to 36 (but feels like 24) degree Detroit Rock City tomorrow for Thanksgiving, which, sadly, means no Thanksgiving at our house.



We'll be doing a little cooking though, since we'd feel like we didn't really get to have a Thanksgiving if we didn't get to participate.



And I'll probably make my way into the kitchen to come up with some mushroom pate too, since it's the best thing in the entire world.

Anyhoo, since we're kind of half-assing things this year, I thought I'd just own it and pull the lamest of lame blogger tricks: I'm sending you back to the posts of yesteryear.

Perhaps you'll pour yourself a nice glass of whatever tickles your fancy and read about our feast from last year.

Or join me in my cheese consumption by watching this masterpiece.

Or, lastly, this post, in which I basically call my parents bad cooks and claim to be a martian from a foodie planet far, far away. See how ungrateful I am? Don't be like that. 'Tis the season to be thankful for what you've got. And you--you incredibly good looking devil you...



Well, you've got a lot to be grateful for. Happy Turkey Day.

[where: 98101]

Eating Easter: Rosemary and lemon crusted leg of lamb

It's Easter! Lucky for us, the Easter bunny came yesterday, so we don't have to slog around in this drizzly weather looking for eggs.



Tonight we're having a family dinner and we're recreating the fantastic leg of lamb we cooked last October. So I'm lazily re-printing the recipe below. Enjoy.



What a beautiful piece of meat it was. I had to do a little trimming of silver skin, but not much. We left a good amount of fat on the meat (which we scored so that it'd render more easily) and did a very simple rosemary-lemon-garlic salt rub. We also threw a thick-sliced onion and some sliced fennel into the bottom of the roasting pan (to cook in the lamb juices). Yum.


Rosemary Crusted Leg of Lamb
1 6-7lb leg of lamb, bone-in
4 T rosemary needles
8 cloves garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
1 T kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
olive oil
1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced (optional)
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced (optional)

Prepare salt:
In a small food-processor, chop 6 cloves of garlic, all of the rosemary, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Process until rosemary is very fine and all garlic is chopped fine. Set aside.



Prepare lamb:
Score fat on lamb in a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife, getting down to the meat level with your knife. This allows the fat to render, which marinates the meat and gives the finished roast a crispy thin crust (as opposed to a thick fatty crust).

Rub the lamb with the rosemary-lemon-garlic salt. Thinly slice the 2 remaining cloves of garlic and, using a long narrow knife, cut slits into the lamb, placing slices of garlic into the slits and pushing them in with your finger. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 to 4 hours.



Remove roast from refrigerator 1/2 hour before cooking, to come to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 425. Place oven rack towards the bottom of the oven (you want the lamb to sit in the middle of the oven, not towards the top). Scatter onions and fennel in bottom of roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Remove plastic from meat and place lamb on a roasting rack. Place rack into the roasting pan (or you can place the roast directly onto the fennel and onions) and roast for 25 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and roast for another hour to 75 minutes, or until a thermometer reads 130 in the thickest part of the roast. Remove from oven and allow meat to rest, tented with foil, for 20 minutes.








[where: 98118]

Eating In: Macrina potato bread

We finally nailed it! My favorite loaf for years was the Macrina potato loaf, and since I have the Macrina Bakery Cookbook and the nearest Macrina is farther away than I'd like, I figured we should give it a shot.

So in the last, say, 4 weeks, Ed and I have made probably 5 loaves, and we finally got it just right. Below you'll find the recipe with my notes (**) and some things we learned along the way.

A couple quick things:
1) Do NOT be stingy with the salt. The loaf could actually use even more than this recipe calls for, I think.
2) Do not go to all the trouble of baking homemade bread and get to the end and realize your crappy store-brand flour has lost its umph. Yes, flour goes bad! I found this out the hard way when my homemade pizza crust under my homemade sauce (!!) tasted like cardboard. Just buy some good King Arthur Flour--it's worth the $3.
3) Do NOT be a wimp about the kneading. The loaf definitely needs a good long knead, so set the timer so you don't accidentallyonpurpose knead for too short a time.

And now...drum roll.....taDA!

Here she is. A beauty, no?



Macrina Potato Loaf
1 1/4 lbs russet potatoes
1 T kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
2 T extra virgin olive oil
3 C unbleached all-purpose flour
ice cubes

Scrub potatoes, leave skins on, and cut into 1 inch chunks (**the chunks don't need to be perfect). Place potatoes and 1 tsp of the kosher salt and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender. Measure out 1/2 cup of potato water and set aside. Drain potatoes in colander and leave them to dry for 20 minutes.

Pour the lukewarm potato water into a small bowl and sprinkle yeast over the top. Stir together well and then leave to stand for 5 minutes.

Place drained, cooled potatoes in bowl of stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, mis on low for a minute to roughly mash. Add olive oil and mix another minute. Add potato water/yeast mixture and mix until combined (**scraping the bowl once or twice) for about 1-2 minutes. (If mixing by hand, place potatoes and olive oil in a bowl and mash with a potato masher. Add potato water/yeast mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.) Switch to hook attachment and add flour and remaining 2 tsp salt. Mix briefly on low spead to start bringing ingredients together (**use spatula to push flour into bottom of mixer), then increase speed to medium (**4 on KitchenAide) and mix for 11 minutes. (If mixing by hand, add flour and 2 tsp salt and mix with wooden spoon. Knead with your hands for 10-15 minutes.) **Dough will appear to not be binding at first, it'll look dry and like it's not coming together, but it will become moist as kneading continues. Check for elasticity by pulling the dough; finished dough should stretch about 2 inches without breaking.

Pull dough from bowl onto a lightly floured surface and form into a ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let proof for about 45 minutes in a warm 70F room. Dough will almost double in size.

Place dough on a floured surface and flatten it into a rectangle with your hands (**rectangle should be slightly wider left-to-right than long top-to-bottom). Starting with the end closest to you, roll dough away from you into a tight log. Stop rolling just before you get to the end, and then flatten the last 1/2 inch of the dough and flour this 1/2 inch section. This will prevent the loaf from fully sealing and will cause the seam to open slightly during baking. Wrap loaf--seam side down--in a floured dishtowel and let proof at room temp for 45 minutes. Dough will rise slightly and feel spongy to the touch.

Place baking stone on center rack of oven and preheat to 400F. Place a small oven-proof pan under the baking stone--**we use our tiniest cast iron pan, which is about 6" across. (**A baking stone REALLY helps the loaf bake evenly. Our first attempts--before we replaced the baking stone I so dumbly left in our oven in Jackson--were not nearly as good as the baking stone ones. Just so you know. If you don't have one, pre-heating a cookie sheet might work, but I'm not taking the blame if it doesn't.)

Working quickly: Get about 3 ice cubes from the freezer. Get your loaf mostly unwrapped from the towel. Open oven, place loaf seam side up on baking stone, and place 2 ice cubes into the pan beneath the stone. Close door and do NOT open it for at least 5 minutes (**this is when the crust gets all steamed and chewy). After 5 minutes, add the last ice cube and close door again. Bake for 40 more minutes, or until loaf is registering about 205F (**for those of you baking at altitude, your cooking time may be MUCH shorter--we noticed ours was when we lived in Jackson). Let cool for 30 minutes.


After admiring you loaf for those 30 minutes, slice off a hunk, slather with butter and sprinkle a little salt on top for a piece that basically tastes like potato chips in warm bread form.

Eating In: Butter pecan ice cream

It's a tie.

The incredibly delicious turkey we bought from Tom at Meadow Wood Organic Farm was the best turkey I've ever tasted. By far. I did a simple sage-salt-pepper butter under the skin and we basted her pretty often, but there's no way any of that made a difference. The heritage turkey just plain tastes turkier.

But the addictive, insanely rich homemade butter pecan ice cream I made to go with Dad's apple pie? I guess we'll have to call it even.

I hardly ever follow a recipe to a T, and this time is no different. I meant to follow it, but we didn't have enough pecans (yeah yeah, I know, who makes butter pecan without pecans?) But you know what? I'm not sure I'd bother adding them next time since this ice cream--sans nuts--is pure rich maple-y goodness. It's a wow. Here's the recipe. Oh, and for the original, check out Leite's Culinaria.

Butter Pecan Ice Cream
3 large egg yolks
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
3/4 cup light cream
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk egg yolks in a medium heat-safe bowl until pale yellow and set aside.

In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, melt butter until it begins to brown and smell nutty, stirring constantly. Add brown sugar and stir until melted. This can take up to 5 minutes, so be patient.

Reduce heat to low, very slowly add milk and light cream while whisking, and bring to a simmer. Do not boil! Be patient--this step can take a few minutes.

Drizzle half the milk mixture into the egg yolks very slowly and whisk until blended.

Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the remaining milk and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, 5+ minutes. Be careful not to overheat; if you do so you will curdle the egg yolks and you'll have to start over. If testing with a candy thermometer, do not heat past 170°F [76C].)

Strain the batter into a clean, large heat-safe bowl. Stir in heavy cream and vanilla extract. Cover and refrigerate the batter until completely cold, preferably overnight.

Stir the batter gently and freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Remove the ice cream with a spatula and store in a plastic container in the freezer.




[where: 98118]

Good Read: Ruhlman on how to make turkey stock

Watcha doin' during Apple Cup?


Nope, I'm not talking about drinking beer. Nah, not eating Velveeta chili dip either. That's all fine and dandy, but what I'm talking about will change your life in no small way.

Friends, today you're making turkey stock! That turkey carcas you keep thinking you're going to do something else with but never will? That carcas is going to avoid getting tossed this year. This year you'll use its delicious broth for weeks or months to come.

And Ruhlman's going to tell you just how incredibly easy it is to make.

...By the end of Thursday, tens of millions of households will have the most miraculous ingredients for stock right at hand--turkey bones that have been lovingly roasted. And most of these households will have three more days of holiday to put them to use. That roasted turkey carcass, will make an extraordinary rich delicious poultry broth. Far superior to chicken stock. Infinitely versatile. Health-giving! Yea, verily, I say unto you!

Find the full piece (and so-easy-a-baby-could-do-it directions) here.

Oh, and GO HUSKIES!

Eating In: Seafood in saffron sauce with calamari linguini

After picking up a bunch of goodies at Pike Place Market we had all the ingredients for a great seafood pasta, but we didn't have a sauce recipe in mind. So I did a little searching and found this recipe for seafood pasta on Waitrose (yep, Food Illustrated has a website!). We used this recipe as a jumping-off point.

I had saffron on hand, and we figured we could tweak or leave out the other things we didn't have (like courgettes, aka zucchini). I imagined the black "calamari" linguini from Pappardelle's would be beautiful against the pink prawns and yellow saffron sauce. And it was. Absolutely beautiful.


This was one of the tastiest seafood pasta dishes I've ever had. Perfect for having guests over because it's fairly quick and, again, so pretty on the plate.



Any combo of seafood would work here; as you'll see, the recipe is very basic, so grilled or seared salmon, mussels, or whatever combo of seafood you want to use would be fine. Think in terms of color, though--salmon would be pretty against the saffron yellow sauce, as would the dark color of mussels.


Seafood in Saffron Sauce with Calamari Linguini
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup dry white wine
3/4 tsp saffron threads
3 T butter
1 large shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2/3 c half-n-half
1 lb prawns, peeled and deveined, reserving all shells
1/2 lb calamari, cut into thick rings or strips
2 T chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1lb calamari linguini or squid-ink pasta (you can usually find these darkly colored pastas at specialty stores or in Asian supermarkets)

Place the broth, wine, saffron and prawn shells into a medium saucepan over medium heat and cook until reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.


Drop pasta into boiling water to cook.

While pasta is cooking, melt 2 tablespoons butter to a large saute pan over medium heat, then add the shallot and garlic. Cook (but do not brown) and soften shallot-garlic mixture for about five minutes, then add the prawns. Cook just until prawns are starting to turn completely pink. Remove prawns to a plate (they should be slightly underdone).

Once the pasta is done cooking, drain pasta and leave in colander. Working quickly, cook the calamari for 1 minute, then pour the saffron sauce through a fine strainer (to remove shells) into the saute pan.



Immediately add the pasta and cook for medium heat for 1 or 2 minutes. Add the prawns and parsley into the pan and immediately pour the entire pasta/seafood/sauce mixture into a serving bowl.


Serve hot with crusty bread and a nice Chardonnay.

[where: 98118]

Good Read: How to cook a heritage bird

My friend Jane's got me worrying. She mentioned in one of her comments that cooking a heritage breed turkey is different (and more difficult) than cooking the usual chubby-wubby Tom. Course she didn't say how we should cook the turkey.

I've been a little nervous about it ever since. It's our first Thanksgiving, after all. And it's our first heritage turkey. I decided a little research was in order.

image via Lifehacker
Prepare for a shock, friends: When it comes to cooking turkey, there's no consensus! Take a look at the Heritage Foods website. There are recipes from, among others, Dan Barber and Zac Pellacio, two great chefs whose food I've enjoyed at their NY restaurants. Barber suggests cooking the bird at 475F (!!), then turning it down to 350F. Pellacio says 300F for the long haul. And that's just the beginning.

Some say to remove the legs and thighs and cook them longer (I guess while the rest of the bird sits on the counter?), and almost all the recipes call for a huge mess of butter.

Then I found this article by a man named William Rubel, a "specialist in traditional cooking." He writes in a semi-goofy, formal voice, but anyone who advises cooking meat less than those stupid USDA guidelines has my vote. As any good cook knows, if you follow those store-bought meat thermometers you'll have medium to medium-well meat every time. That swoony med-rare steak you had at the fancy steakhouse? It was definitely not cooked to 140F.

Anyways, Rubel says to cook the bird at a hot temperature for less time, as you would a duck. And he says cooking turkey until its 180F is a very bad idea, and instead to cook it until its around 140F.

A note on the cooking temperature: The USDA recommendation of 180F in the deepest part of the thigh, and 160F in the stuffing is based on the government's need to provide a simple general rule that will cover all health and safety eventualities. Heritage turkeys, as of this writing in the fall of 2003, are being raised in small groups and are being carefully slaughtered, packed, and distributed. These are not mass market birds. My recommendation is based on the assumption that these birds are being carefully handled. The exterior of the bird, which is where most dangerous pathogens are found, will far exceed 180F and will be sterilized through the high-heat baking. Cooking to 140F will not kill pathogens that might have contaminated the inside of the bird -- but you must keep in mind that there are many foods that can harbor food-born pathogens including lettuce and bean sprouts. One of the reasons to know something about where your food comes from is to then have some basis on which to calculate the risk involved in any given food preparation.

Amen, brother.


[where: 98118]

Eating In: Tarragon roasted chicken with russet-Gouda gratin

We were having guests for Halloween, and since I knew there'd be knocking and trick-or-treat-ing and lots of interruptions, I figured an easy, just-stick-it-in-the-oven dinner would be a good idea. Roasted chicken thighs are always good--they pretty much cook themselves into deliciousness with little/no help needed. And I was thinking a simple but yummy potato salad would be good--a no-fuss crowd-pleaser I could make ahead of time.


But a mysterious, four-days-late Mexican hangover must've overtaken me at the grocery store because I bought russet potatoes instead of reds. Sure, you can make potato salad with russets, but it gets all grainy and mushy--not what I had in mind.

So I decided to make a gratin. It's one of those dishes that seems complicated and time-consuming, and that's because it is. Or rather, it is if you don't have a food processor. I would guess it'd take close to an hour (or longer) to slice the potatoes and grate the 2+ cups of cheese by hand, and if you've got a 10 month old swimming in the dog's water dish you'll need to add an extra hour for general policing. So, not happening. But with a food processor, the cheese grating and potato slicing took about 3 minutes total. Oy, what a slave I am to the kitchen.

I used Gouda and Romano in the gratin because that's what I had big chunks of. Not to let the cat out of the bag or disappoint you, but most of my cooking isn't planned days in advance. It's "oops, bought the wrong potatoes, now what?" more often than not. In fact, not only did I use Gouda (instead of Gruyere or some other gratin-appropo cheese), I also had to be a trickster when it came to the "cream" part of the recipe. Maybe some of you regularly have heavy cream and whole milk in the house. We do not, so I had wing it. I ended up using nonfat milk mixed with full-fat plain yogurt to make a fattier cream/milk substitute. And it worked!

We had a giant Costco hunk-o-Gouda in the fridge, which is all melty and mild, and with a little Romano for sharpness, nuttiness and depth, it was a surprisingly great combo. But my guess is that most cheeses would work well here. It's not an exact science; dishes with tons of cheese and potatoes tend to be pretty forgiving. But mixing a milder, softer cheese with a stronger, hard cheese worked well.



Russet Potato Gratin with Gouda and Romano
4 large or 5-6 medium russet potatoes, peeled and sliced to about 1/8" thick (not the thinnest blade on the food processor, the thicker one)
2 medium yellow onions, sliced medium
6oz grated Gouda (using large holes on grater)
2oz grated Romano (using large holes on grater)
1 c milk
1 c whole-milk plain yogurt
3 T chopped fresh parsley
3 T chopped fresh chives
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
3 T butter

Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly oil a 9"x13" baking dish (you can use any shallow pan here--we used a larger one so the gratin would be thinner and crustier).

In a skillet over medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add onions and cook, without browning, until soft, about 7 minutes. Take pan off heat and allow to cool somewhat (the onions can be warm but shouldn't be hot to the touch).

While onions are cooking, whisk milk, yogurt, herbs, salt and pepper in a bowl until yogurt and milk are combined. Set aside.

Using food processor attachments, grate both cheeses. Empty cheeses into a bowl, wipe processor bowl and use large slicing blade to slice potatoes. Set potatoes aside in processor bowl.

Add potatoes in a single layer, slightly overlapping.
Add half onions, scattering over potatoes. Add half of the cheese mixture.


Repeat with potatoes, onions and cheese mixture. Add herbed yogurt-milk mixture last, drizzling over the potatoes to evenly distribute the herbs.


Use your hands to press down onto the potatoes. The milk mixture should not cover the potatoes completely, but it should be a close call.



Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove foil and bake for another 20-30 minutes until very golden and bubbly. Allow to sit for ten minutes before serving.

Tarragon Roasted Chicken
Ed called this "bearnaise chicken" because it has the same ingredients as bearnaise sauce. It's seriously easy and requires very little prep. Just promise me you'll use fresh tarragon. When you're talking about a five-ingredient dish, every ingredient matters.

1 1/2 T chopped fresh tarragon
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 T butter, melted
8 chicken thighs, half with skin and half with skin removed (or you can leave skin on all of them if you prefer)

Preheat oven to 375F
Mix melted butter, lemon juice, garlic and tarragon in a small bowl.

Season chicken thighs with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large, deep saute pan over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add chicken thighs skin (or flesh) side down and leave to brown in the pan. Do not fuss with them or you will tear the skin and flesh. Cook for about 3-4 minutes. Dot bits of lemon-tarragon butter on the pieces and then, once you've peeked and can see that the chicken is nicely browned, turn pieces over (skin side up). If the chicken sticks there's a good chance it hasn't seared yet.


Using a spoon and knife, gently lift the skin and slide a little flavored butter under the skin, or just dab some of the butter onto the skinless thighs.

Once you've added the butter, place the saute pan into the oven and roast, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Top with any remaining butter and roast for another couple minutes. Serve immediately.


[where: 98118]

Eating In: Porcini mushroom linguini in wild mushroom sauce

I can do without Mount St. Helens ash figurines and 26 flavors of salty/sweet almonds, but for as big a tourist destination as it is, the Pike Place Market still has some unique, delicious finds.

My most recent was Pappardelle's flavored dried pasta stand. They've got over 40 flavors, with basil-tangerine, dark chocolate, and Venetian calamari among them. I couldn't resist: I bought a pound of the porcini mushroom.


Then I just whipped up a mushroom sauce using dried porcinis and fresh shiitakes, because that's what we had on hand. I think quick sauces are always better with fresh, so the recipe below calls for 1 1/2lbs of fresh mushrooms, but you can substitute dried for half of the fresh in a pinch (like I did). If using dried, soak the shrooms in hot water for at least 15 minutes.

This sauce is one of the quickest, easiest sauces you can make, and it tastes great whether you use red or white wine, or dry sherry.

Alongside we had the very last caprese of the year, using a tomato we bought from the Bainbridge farmer's market, buffalo mozz I picked up at Trader Joe's, and basil that had been barely clinging to life on my plants.

I swear, though, this is the last time. So thank goodness it was frickin' terrific.

Porcini Mushroom Linguini with Wild Mushroom Sauce
1 large shallot or 1/2 red onion, diced fine
1 1/2lbs fresh wild mushrooms (shiitakes, morels, chanterelles, etc) sliced
3/4 c white wine
4-5 T butter
1/2 c half-n-half
1-2 tsps fresh thyme

1lb porcini mushroom linguini
Romano or Parmesan cheese for grating over the top

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat.

In a large skillet, saute shallot or onion over med-high heat in 1 tablespoon of butter until golden (about 3 minutes). Add another tablespoon of butter to pan and add mushrooms in an even layer. Do not mix right away; leave mushrooms to sear in the pan. After about a minute, stir mushrooms and then leave them again to cook. The pan should be pretty dry, so if your mushrooms are sitting in liquid turn up the heat.



Drop pasta into water to cook.

Once the mushrooms have given off their water and are browning, season with salt, fresh ground pepper and fresh thyme. Add wine (and 1/2 c mushroom soaking liquid if using dried) to pan and reduce to just before dry. Reduce heat to low and add half-n-half, stirring.


Reduce slightly, then take off heat and add 2-3 tablespoons butter, stirring to combine.

Using tongs, add pasta to the sauce, allowing a small amount of the pasta water to come into the sauce pan. Stir to coat, adding pasta water if needed to loosen sauce. Stir in 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese and serve warm, with Parmesan shavings.



The last caprese of 2007 was fantastic. The buffalo milk mozz made a huge difference--it's so much creamier than cow's milk mozz. And even though the basil had seen better days, it did its job. Excellent.






[where: 98118]

Eating In: Sausages, sauerkraut and spaetzle

Yesterday, Mike Seely wrote a perfect sentence. Blogging about a recent trip to Leavenworth for Oktoberfest (on Voracious), he says:

(Leavenworth's) faux-Bavarianness is so all-encompassing and uber-kitschy that it understandably drives a certain type of person absolutely batshit.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for the word "batshit," but he's spot-on. You either appreciate corny crap or you don't. And I do. Oh boy, do I.

This guy made our sausage

And what a co-ink-e-dink: I had planned my own personal Oktoberfest to celebrate Ed's return from Moab! Big jar of sauerkraut? Check. Four fresh sausages from Uli's? Check. I was even planning to embark on my maiden spaetzle voyage. Ed's so lucky, right?


I looked up a recipe for spaetzle and dove right in. It was a basic spaetzle recipe and it was pretty good, but I didn't think it was special enough to warrant inclusion here (see? standards=sky high!)

Now that I'm done, I think I'd want to try a slightly different, lighter recipe next time. I found a couple recipes for ricotta spaetzle, and although it's obviously not an "authentic German spaetzle" recipe, who cares if the stuff is great, right?

Anyhow, here's me making spaetzle using a colander. Messy and kinda tricky. I finally figured out a good technique (slapping at the batter with my spatula) on my last batch.





The finished product, browned in butter and served with fresh parsley and chives.


I served the sausages on a bed of bacony sauerkraut (I browned some bacon in the pan, then added the jar of kraut). Easy as can be, and it helped the canned kraut taste less generic. By the way, the two non-German sausages (one lamb and one linguica) totally rocked; the brats were good too, but I'll be making a special trip to Uli's for the others.




[where: 98118]

Eating In: Rosemary crusted leg of lamb

The lamb feasting continues! Mom and dad had a 7lb bone-in leg of lamb from the whole lamb they'd bought at auction in Ellensburg. And knowing how much we love to cook (and eat) lamb, they decided to hand it over to us to cook for a big family dinner. Score.


What a beautiful piece of meat it was. I had to do a little trimming of silver skin, but not much. We left a good amount of fat on the meat (which we scored so that it'd render more easily) and did a very simple rosemary-lemon-garlic salt rub. We also threw a thick-sliced onion and some sliced fennel into the bottom of the roasting pan (to cook in the lamb juices). Yum.

It was perfect--I wouldn't change a thing.

Rosemary Crusted Leg of Lamb
1 6-7lb leg of lamb, bone-in
4 T rosemary needles
8 cloves garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
1 T kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
olive oil
1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced (optional)
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced (optional)

Prepare salt:
In a small food-processor, chop 6 cloves of garlic, all of the rosemary, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Process until rosemary is very fine and all garlic is chopped fine. Set aside.



Prepare lamb:
Score fat on lamb in a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife, getting down to the meat level with your knife. This allows the fat to render, which marinates the meat and gives the finished roast a crispy thin crust (as opposed to a thick fatty crust).

Rub the lamb with the rosemary-lemon-garlic salt. Thinly slice the 2 remaining cloves of garlic and, using a long narrow knife, cut slits into the lamb, placing slices of garlic into the slits and pushing them in with your finger. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 to 4 hours.



Remove roast from refrigerator 1/2 hour before cooking, to come to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 425. Place oven rack towards the bottom of the oven (you want the lamb to sit in the middle of the oven, not towards the top). Scatter onions and fennel in bottom of roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Remove plastic from meat and place lamb on a roasting rack. Place rack into the roasting pan (or you can place the roast directly onto the fennel and onions) and roast for 25 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and roast for another hour to 75 minutes, or until a thermometer reads 130 in the thickest part of the roast. Remove from oven and allow meat to rest, tented with foil, for 20 minutes.


While our lamb was resting we had a beet-walnut-goat cheese salad (with gorgeous beets from mom and dad's garden). We served our lamb with roasted "Ruby" fingerling potatoes with shallots, the lamb-juicy onions and fennel, creamed spinach and warm rosemary bread. Everyone had a great time; Ruby even ate some lamb. Strawberry-rhubarb pie ala mode for dessert. We were stuffed.


Ed couldn't stop talking about how much fun it is having a big family dinner on a cold, rainy Sunday evening. I couldn't agree more.



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