That's NOT how Momma does it

The way to a husband's heart is through his stomach. Or his momma.

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

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I have to say I am living a pretty perfect little Marin based life right now. Since my second child is about to come in a few months, I've been taking it easy on the work front - and because walking is a bit challenging for me right now so it's probably best that I do. 

So I work in the mornings at an ad agency in Sausalito, pick CJ up and come home eat lunch and nap. Gotta tell you, it feels like I am living in Spain or Greece or something. I don't know generally why we can't have siestas like those cultures do - it would make me so much more productive!! 

In any case, inspired by my temporary Mediterranean life, until a much smaller and much more demanding new client comes into my life - I came home and instead of whipping up a sandwich, I had a go at making a pasta salad. I had a ton of veggies that were going to go off if I didn't use them, some feta in the fridge as well as some left over fresh pesto. 

Nick actually taught me a clever trick when it comes to preserving pesto, all you have to do is pour some olive oil over the top of it, and it seals in the fresh stuff. Then when you come to use it again, you just scoop off the oil and whatever brown pesto is on the edges. Pretty clever, I have to say. 

So the salad was super simple - cook about about three cups of pasta I used conchiglie (the little small shell shaped ones) but you could use any kind of shaped pasta you wanted to make this salad. Rinse them in some cool water. 

Then chop up about one cup each of three slices of proscuitto torn up, yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes, uncooked asparagus sliced at an angle with the tops and the bottoms removed, and about three tablespoons of feta, then add in about three tablespoons of pesto and voila super simple but super tasty salad. 

Heirloom Tomato, Watermelon, Burrata and Pesto Salad

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Every once in a while there's a dish that becomes a mini obsession of mine, and well I go on these little rampages where I make them over and over again for a few weeks. When I was visiting San Diego for my sister-in-law and her partner's baby shower, we went out for dinner and had a heirloom tomato, buratta and mozzarella salad. 

It was delicious, and for days afterwards I just kept craving it. One of those pregnant things I suppose, you eat something you like and then you gotta have it. So I attempted to make it once but using feta instead of burrata and it wasn't quite right.

So last night I went the whole hog and decided to make it again, but this time with burrata. I also fortunately had some fresh pesto sitting in the refrigerator that I had made a few nights before, and I made that into a bit of an emulsion with two tablespoons of extra oil, and drizzled it on top of the watermelon and tomato. And then also to bulk the salad up a bit, I added a bed of spinach to the mix which was also very good. 

Literally this is chopped up watermelon, slices of heirloom tomato sitting on top of a bed of spinach, with some chunks of fresh burrata on top. Then season with some salt and fresh black pepper, and drizzle some pesto you've added a bit extra olive oil to over the top. The only way to make it better, would of course be to make your own burrata. Which is something that I am definitely up for trying if I can get my hands on some mozzarella curds. 

This is definitely going to continue to be my salad for the summer. The key though is really tasty watermelon and super ripe and tender heirloom tomatoes. Get that right, and you've got a simple and yet amazing dish. 

Chicken Miso Soba Soup

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Being sick sucks, but being pregnant and sick doubly sucks. You're already wiped out and then you have to deal with a cold on top of it. Not so much fun. Which is why soup becomes such an attractive proposition. 

You chop up some veggies, you throw in some stock, a bit of miso and noodles, and voila dinner is served. At the end of the day you still need to eat, and unless you can wrangle someone else to do the cooking, simple is good. And for some reason, Chicken soup does have temporary healing properties, it always seems to make you feel better when you eat it. 

And this recipe was very, very simple. Particularly as the chicken I had was already cooked. One less step removed. All I did was chop the veggies, fry them up a bit in olive oil, throw in the stock with the noodles, add the miso at the end and voila tasty soup. And the best part of it, the person you're serving it to probably will think you invested way more effort in it than you actually did. 

Chicken Miso Soba Soup

1 cup of chopped carrot
1 cup of chopped onion
1 cup of chopped bell pepper
2 cups of chopped chicken 
1 cup of chopped mushrooms
2 cups of chopped kale
6 cups of low sodium soup
1 tbsp of miso
1 bundle of soba noodles
20 turns of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of white pepper

Take the carrot, onion, bell pepper and chicken and sautee it in some oilve oil for 3-4 minutes in a soup pot. Then add the stock, the mushrooms and the soba noodles and let those cook on medium heat for about ten minutes until the soba is soft and tender. Then add in the kale, and the pepper for taste, and the miso, which you need to stir around vigorously for the soup to absorb. Test for salt levels and add more if needed. Cook until the kale is completely soft. Then serve. 

Five Hour Lamb Pot Roast and Strawberry and Blueberry Cake

Last weekend was Easter, and of course I had an excuse to try and whip up a nice meal. There are three things in the spring that really have to be enjoyed - Lamb is one, fresh asparagus is the other, and the third but only because I live in California and well they're fresh here is strawberries. 

So after a trip to the Marin Country Mart Farmer's Market last Saturday at Larkspur landing - which by the way is a real gem if you want an uncrowded market experience in Marin/San Francisco. Nick and I have actually run into friends who have come over on the ferry from the city for it because they didn't want to deal with the hassles of the Ferry Building on Saturday. 

And from experience, I know the San Rafael market although very nice, can also be a bit of a mad house. What's nice about this market is that it's literally rejuvenated a mini mall that before was pretty desolate and full of empty shops - now there's lots of really nice clothing stores, new restaurants etc. that have opened up because the market has brought in more traffic. And they had a great little Easter celebration for the kids with music, and an easter bunny, it was a pretty fun day. 

In any case, we picked up most of the essentials that we needed for our meal there, and I consulted a few of my favorite sources for inspiration for what I could do with the ingredients that I picked up, and found a recipe from Jamie Oliver I could adapt for Five Hour Pot Roasted lamb and one from Martha Stewart that I would just copy except for the addition of blueberries for a Strawberry cake - link included here. Although, I think my photo is actually prettier than hers. 

It looked like the perfect meal, two dishes you could assemble and then leave them - which right now is exactly what I need cooking as a preggo woman. Too much time on the feet, my hips seize up and suddenly I am out of action. 

But frankly they're dishes that anybody who really doesn't like tending a hot stove would appreciate because there isn't much 'real' cooking involved. The lamb is pretty simple to assemble, you sear it and put in a large dutch oven and leave for a long time, and the cake is beat in a mixer, pour into a cake pan and cook for an hour and voila you look like a cooking master.

The dinner turned out perfectly, awesome flavor, and I paired the pot roast with the garlic asparagus which I whipped up in one of my last recipes. The cake was pretty good - not perfect, but I will be the first to admit that I am not an amazing baker - never have been. But people seemed to eat it and enjoy it, so who am I to judge. 

Five Hour Pot Roast (adapted from Jamie Oliver)

1 tbsp of olive oil
1 3-4 lb lamb shoulder roast
4 cloves of garlic
2 large red onions
20 small new potatoes, diced
6 carrots, peeled 
4 stalks of three cornered leeks (or green onions) 
1 bottle of white wine
750ml of water
6 large pieces of fresh rosemary
2 tbsp of dried thyme
20 turns of fresh black pepper
2 teaspoons of salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Season the lamb all over with salt and pepper and thyme, and then heat olive oil up in a dutch oven until almost smoking, then sear the lamb all over. 

Then add the garlic and the red onions to cook for a few minutes, then the new potatoes, carrots and let them soften for about five minutes. Then add in the leeks or green onions, and the white wine, and water. Top off with the rosemary stalks, and cover the dutch oven and let it literally cook for five hours. Turning the lamb shoulder over once every hour. 

Although this has potatoes in it, I served it with some polenta which was a nice combination. 

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Steak with Three Cornered Leek Potato Cakes and Garlic Asparagus

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The last few weeks haven't exactly been conducive to cooking up elaborate meals for my blog. Pregnant, with a sinus infection and flying solo with my little dude who was also sick meant I was all about easy and quick meals, frankly I wasn't all that in the mood for anything more. That and I don't enjoy cooking as much when it's just for myself - half the fun is the praise you get for making something delicious, and watching someone else enjoy your meal. 

But when Nick came back from his business trip, I was all about cooking something elaborate. And as spring has properly sprung in Marin, there were more delicious wild Three Cornered Leeks to experiment with. Last year around this time I cooked a Valentine's meal for Nick where I roasted chicken with them. They are delicious but really persistent weed that actually most people probably see in the area and walk right on by. 

But essentially they're a spring onion, mixed with chives, and have a fabulous taste. And since we had some growing right in our own backyard, I felt compelled to use them in something. So I roasted another chicken, but instead of using them on the chicken, I used them in some mashed potatoes. Nick raved about the potatoes, and of course the next day I had some left over to do something with. 

So to go with a steak the next night, I took the left over potatoes which really were your bog standard three potatoes, 1/2 cup of milk, a tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper to taste, with a 1/2 cup of chopped leeks, and then turned them into potato cakes. I beat two eggs, put about a cup of panko bread crumbs on a plate, rolled the potatoes into flat cakes, dipped them into the egg and then the panko, and fried them in a tbsp of oil - about 3 minutes on each side until brown. 

While I was doing that I sauteed up some giant asparagus - I used to think that small tender asparagus was the best, but recently found the joys in giant asparagus. I cut off about an inch off the bottoms, and peel them about halfway up with a potato peeler, then I sauté them on medium in a tbsp of butter, with about two cloves of garlic and the juice of half a lemon. I love the flavor that the garlic and lemon combo gives the asparagus. 

The result, Nick proclaimed it was beautiful, and then the potatoes were amazing. It feels good to be back on the cooking horse again, and best of all having a hero ingredient that is absolutely free! 

Beef Stroganoff with Porcini Spaetzle

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It was one of those fortunate days in Marin county, where just after a big rain and a bit of sun the mushrooms came back out to play. Nick checked his favorite hill, and came back withs some prime porcini mushrooms. 

I had another meal planned for that night, but this was something special, fresh porcini, and justified me taking a bit more effort to make something special. Sometimes I get a wild hair, and need to really cook up something elaborate. 

So after a little search around my favorite sites - Epicurious, Food and Wine and Sunset Magazine, I came across this recipe for Beef Stroganoff with Peppered Spaetzle on Epicurious. Which sounded delicious and I decided to try and make. But little did I know how labor intensive it was actually going to be - and how under prepared I was to make it. There was a lot of steps to it, but nothing that I hadn't tried to tackle before, so I felt confident. 

What I didn't take into consideration was the pregnant factor, and how standing for long times isn't exactly the best for me right now - halfway through making it my hip seized up and I had to call in back up resources (Nick) to take over. 

The spaetzle was pretty time intensive, a bit like making pasta where you had to make the dough, and then push the dough out of a colander or spaetzle maker (which I didn't have) into some perfectly heated water. Then dunk it in cold water and rise it off. 

Then you have a few ingredients you have to make from scratch - the shallot marmalade, and the mushroom puree (which I used porcinis for instead of black trumpets). Then there's the cooking of the steaks, and putting together the ingredients into the pasta. 

All in all it was a delicious recipe, and one that some day when I have better hips and more energy to make, I'll try again. But as Nick put it, that was a hell of a lot of effort for one dish. Next time just put it over some pre-made pasta, which frankly probably would have been just as delicious. 

Blood Orange, Rosemary and Garlic Marinated Pork Tenderloin

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It's now spring time in California and the produce suddenly perks up. I can't believe how I put up with the poor selection of vegetables in London for so long, after living here for a few years. It's a world apart. Everything there is shrink wrapped and flown in from Chile. Not to say that doesn't still happen here, it certainly does.

However, there are also amazing vegetable stocks right at our back door, and if you wait a bit and look for stuff that is local then you'll usually find it. Oranges are literally grown throughout the year here. And at the store this week there were some beautiful California Blood or Moro Oranges. I just love the color of these oranges, and wanted to buy them to firstly impress CJ, but also because they just had to be cooked with. 

I had been plotting a orange marinated pork tenderloin for some time, and actually thought the blood orange would be an interesting twist because it has a flavor that is a little less syrupy sweet than normal oranges. So after looking at a few different recipes, I just decided to wing my own marinade. 

It was super simple - squeeze the juice of three oranges, chop up three garlic cloves, de-stem three rosemary branches and use the leaves, use 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a 10 turns of freshly ground black pepper. Mix it all up in a bowl with the pork, then transfer the mix to a plastic bag and let it sit for about an hour or two in the fridge. 

About ten minutes before you take it out of the fridge, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Then when it's done, take out the pork over a sink, leaving on whatever rosemary and garlic is still there. And rub some Rudy's Turkey Rub on it. Yes, it sounds a bit crazy using turkey rub on pork, but it has a wonderful flavor and I use it on all pork and turkey that I cook with, to great effect. 

Then heat up a tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan or cast iron skillet, let it raise in temperature until just smoking, and fry the pork on both sides for 2-3 minutes.  Then transfer to a pyrex baking dish, and cook the pork for 30 minutes in the oven. I use a remote thermometer now, which makes the results of my oven meat attempts much more precise. I totally recommend it. 

The result was beautiful pork, really moist and tender, with a lovely flavor. I'll definitely be using this recipe again in the future. 

Chilaquiles Frittata and Perfectly Cooked Bacon

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There's a local restaurant in Mill Valley called Toast that makes a wicked Chilaquiles, and I woke up last weekend with a real craving for it. We had a million tortilla chips in the house left over from Super Bowl Sunday, and it seemed like an easy enough thing to do. But given it was a saturday morning, and my energy was pretty low I wasn't in the mood for anything that required too much effort.

So I decided to wing my own chilaquiles frittata recipe, and then cook some perfect bacon. The bacon was a recent discovery of mine, while waiting in line at the store one day I was flipping through one of the food magazines on the rack and it suggested cooking bacon on a standing metal rack with 1/4 inch rectangular squares over a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees. 

The reason why it produces perfect bacon is that the air circulates underneath the rack, and cooks both sides of the bacon evenly, instead of my usual trick of mistiming the flip and burning one sie of the bacon. It usually takes about 15-20 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is and preference towards how crispy you like your bacon. 

The chilaquiles frittata was my own little concoction, I had read a few recipes online, and most of them were prepared on the stovetop, but like I was saying I was in a low effort mood. This recipe starts on the stovetop, but does most of the magic happens in the stove, and then you've got a super tasty breakfast dish for the whole family. 

Chilaquiles Frittata

1 tbsp of butter

1 cup of chopped peppers (green, red or yellow)

1 cup of chopped onions

2 tablespoons of milk 

8 eggs

1 cup of tortilla chips

1 cup of monterrey jack cheese

1/2 teaspoon of salt

20 turns of black pepper

Fresh avocado to garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and then on the stovetop melt the butter in a 12" frying pan. Then add the onions and the peppers and saute them for a few minutes until the onion is translucent and the peppers are soft. 

Add the tortilla chips and fry them slightly with the peppers and onions for about a minute. Then lightly beat the eggs and the milk together in a separate bowl and add the salt and pepper and mix through. Then pour the eggs over the peppers, onions, and chips. Top with the monterrey jack cheese and put into the oven. Cook for about 20-25 minutes until the cheese on the fritatta is a bit brown on top, and you can put a fork through the eggs and pull it out cleanly. Slice and serve with fresh avocado. 

Dungeness Crab Louie

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Being a daughter of the Northwest, you grow up with a predisposition towards loving crab, but in particular Dungness crab - unless of course you have some sort of awful shellfish allergy, in which case I am sorry, that really sucks. 

I can remember the first time my dad took me out crabbing - it was a really cold morning on the bay in Netarts Bay, just south of Tillamook, Oregon. He put tons of stinky fish into a crab ring, the crabs would crawl in, we all took turns pulling them up, and I would sit there petrified about the crabs running around on the bottom of the boat. Then we took them all to this giant boiler and dumped them in. And when we got home there was an absolute feast. 

Later in life the crabbing pursuit involved friends on the end of the Oregon State University marine biology dock, drinking cheap beer, smoking stogies and pulling up crab rings. 

Now living in California, my crabbing adventure consists of going to Whole Foods, picking one out of a glass case and asking them to crack it and clean it for me. 

However, I have it in my mind that I will get down to Half Moon bay to try and get some for ourselves, I think Charlie would dig it. 

In any case, with my lovely little store bought crab, we made a delicious classic Crab Louie salad last night. I added a few other ingredients besides the standard to it. 

Mine consisted of a mixture of mixed greens with butter lettuce, hard boiled eggs (2 per plate), sliced red pepper and red onion, about a half of a cup of crab meat each, and topped it off with some avocado. 

I found a couple of different Louis dressings online, and adapted it to make my own version, since it was just Nick and I dining, I didn't need a gallon of the stuff. It supposedly was the salad to have at the turn of the century, but I still think it's pretty darn good. Pretty simple meal to throw together, the only laborious part was picking the crab meat. 

Classic Louie dressing

1/2 cup Light mayonaise
1/4 cup of heavy cream
1/4 cup of tomato ketchup 
2 tbsp of grated red pepper
2 tbsp of grated red onion
1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
10 turns fresh black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Oyster Mushroom Dim Sum and Chard Wrapped Turbot

So I have been on a mission recently to mix up the type of foods that I cook a bit more. I like to roast stuff (a lot) because it's pretty darn simple. But now that I am going to have another baby, I am a little bit more wary about what I'm putting in my body - because frankly I don't want to blow up like the Goodyear blimp. 

And so the idea of steaming food became more attractive. Then I was on Sunset magazine's site the other day and came across a recipe for Chard Wrapped Halibut - which sounded absolutely delicious. And then I was on a mission. I went straight to Amazon and ordered a nice two-tier bamboo steamer, a metal ring that I could use to place the steamer in a wok (just above some water), and a Dim Sum book to boot. 

I was actually really excited about trying out the recipes. The book Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch which had some really great looking recipes in it. It even had a recipe for how to make the super delicious dim sum wrappers - but given it was a tuesday night, and frankly making dinner was going to be energy draining enough, I took the easy way out and just used some store bought wrappers to make some Oyster mushroom Dim Sum. 

When I started cooking, Nick was hovering over my shoulder proclaiming, "What are you doing?" Clearly it was a departure in my cooking style. To which I told him, don't worry it's going to be good. 

The mushroom dim sum filing was super simple to throw together, the labor intensive part was putting the filling in the wrappers. The fish was also pretty easy, steam the chard, put some ingredients down on the chard then steam it. I served the whole thing with a bit of an almond rice pilaf. 

Nick was pretty blown away, "This is so f#$@ing good! You need to do this again." I am all about it, I love dim sum and now that I know how to make it, I am all over it. Now I just need to get brave enough to actually make dim sum dough. 

Oyster Mushroom Steamed Dim Sum

6 oz of oyster mushrooms
2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro
2 spring onions, chopped
2 teaspoons of peanut oil
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons of rice wine
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
1/8 teaspoon of white pepper
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1 1/2 tablespoons of water
12-15 wonton wrappers

Finely chop the oyster mushrooms, cilantro, and spring onions, and then fry them over medium-high heat for about three minutes in the peanut oil, continually stirring. Then turn the heat to low add the soy sauce, the rice wine, the oyster sauce, sugar, and white pepper and let that cook for about two minutes. Then add the cornstarch dissolved in the water. Let that cook for about a minute more over medium high het until the sauce thickens, stirring the entire time. 

Then take the sauce and chill it in the freezer for about a minute (or if you want to refrigerate it overnight). Then take small spoonfuls, place them in the center of the wrappers. Then use your finger to trace the outside edges of the won ton, then bring the four corners up and seal together. 

Take about 2 inches of water inside a cleaned out wok, and bring it up to a boil. Then place the won tons in a two tier steamer, line it with parchment paper, and then steam for 7-8 minutes. 

Chard Wrapped Turbot

1 large bunch of chard leaves
2 pieces of Turbot (about 1lb of fish) 
2 spring onions, chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh thyme
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon of butter
2 small lemons
Salt and pepper

Boil a large stockpot full of water, and dunk the chard leaves in there to cook for about a minute. Then have a cold bowl of water waiting. Then transfer the leaves once softened from the boiling water to the cold water. Dry the leaves with a paper towel. 

Then take the two largest leaves and lay flat. Divide the parsley, thyme, and onions between the leaves. Then place the fish on top. Then season with salt and pepper, take one lemon and slice it very finely, then divide about 6 slices on top of each fish, then use the juice of the other lemon on top. Wrap the leaves around the fish, then take another leaf of chard for each piece and place on the bottom to seal. 

Then place about two inches of water in a wok, place inside a bamboo steamer basket lined with parchment paper, bring the water to full boil, then place the basket on the wok and cook for about 10 minutes. 

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