Bluebird

Tokyo Fish Market

Surrounded by amazing food year-round, the Bay Area can be a bit spendy depending where you shop. Wild salmon is in season and I was determined to try the following recipe from the SF Chronicle. I can buy incredible salmon at my favorite upscale neighborhood market for about $30 a pound--or I can go to Berkeley's Tokyo Fish Market and get it for $20.

I love this shop because they also have great wine prices, although a limited selection, outstanding sakes, soy sauce and 15 lb. bags of rice. The girls love their Yam Yam cookies, butter cookies that come with chocolate frosting for dipping.

The dinner was a hit, especially good on a warm evening like we had last night. Now the temp's back to its seasonal spring normal, highs in the 60s, so I'll probably make pasta or something tonight.

 

Grilled Salmon BLT Salad

Serves 4 to 6

 A creamy garlic dressing punches up this deconstructed salmon BLT. This is a great use for a leftover filet of grilled salmon. The dressing can be made ahead of time, and the whole salad can be assembled while the bacon cooks. Use smaller grape tomatoes, which will be sweeter at this time of year.

• The dressing
• 6 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• -- Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste
• The salad
• 6 slices thick-cut bacon
• 2 to 3 romaine hearts, bottom core removed and leaves left whole
• 1 cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1 avocado, pitted and diced, optional
• 1 pound fresh wild salmon fillets, skin on

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 325° and prepare a grill for high heat cooking.

To make the dressing, whisk the mayonnaise, buttermilk, vinegar and garlic in a small bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.

Place the bacon slices on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet, and bake about 25 minutes, flipping the slices once halfway through cooking. Drain on paper towels and break each slice in half.

While the bacon is cooking, arrange the lettuce, tomatoes and avocado, if using, on a platter. Place the salmon flesh side down on a well-greased grill, and cook until desired doneness, flipping once about halfway through cooking, about 8-9 minutes for medium.

Top the salad with salmon and bacon, and drizzle with the dressing. Serve immediately.

Per serving: 301 calories, 18 g protein, 3 g carbohydrates, 23 g fat (6 g saturated), 67 mg cholesterol, 379 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

 

When in doubt, she cooks...

I hope the blogger and the NY Times I stole these images and recipes from forgive me, but with the recent Boston Massacre I needed to deal with it all somehow...so I cooked and baked my way towards processing the senselessness of it all.

Too affected to document what I made, I am reduced to sharing the original poster's images. My bad, lo siento, big time. But it was so so good...a super moist blood orange pound cake we capped with fresh strawberries and twirls of whipped cream, preceded by the most delicate cheese ravioli along with asparagus tips and sugar snap peas all in a succulent parmesan broth....that I have to share the yum. This is the comfort food that sustained us here tonight. Here are the links and fotos to our most bittersweet and blessed meal...

Blood Orange Vanilla Loaf Cakes from Dorie Greenspan

 

Dorie Greenspan, Baking from My Home to Yours

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 16

Seasonal sweet-and-tart blood oranges bring brightness to a buttery, vanilla loaf cake.

Ingredients

• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 blood oranges, zested and juiced
• 2 Tablespoons blood orange juice (I squeezed the juice and then reduced it on the stove, resulting in 2 Tablespoons of syrupy, concentrated juice.)
• 1/8 teaspoon orange oil
• 1/2 plump, moist vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped out and reserved or 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 large eggs at room temperature
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 stick plus 7 Tablespoons (15 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled (I browned mine a bit, but it isn’t necessary)
• Syrup
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup blood orange juice (I used 1 1/2 oranges for the syrup as the size of the oranges I had varied a bit.)

Instructions

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 8 1/2-x-4 1/2-x2 1/2-inch loaf pans (I used one regular loaf pan and two mini-loaf pans), dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. (Even if the pans are nonstick, it’s a good idea to butter and flour them.) Place the pans on an insulated baking sheet or two regular sheets stacked one on top of the other.
2. Melt the butter, or brown it if you choose. Set it aside to cool.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.
4. Put the sugar, the zest of the two oranges and the pulp from the vanilla beans, if using them, in a large bowl, and working with your fingers, rub them together until the sugar is moist and thoroughly imbued with the fragrance of blood orange and vanilla. (If you are using vanilla extract, add it later, after you’ve added the eggs.)
5. Squeeze the juice of the blood oranges that has been zested; you’re aiming for about 1/4 cup. Either use 2 Tablespoons of the juice for the cake (and reserve the remaining juice for the syrup, or heat the roughly 1/4 cup of juice on the stove, bring to a boil to reduce until you have 2 Tablespoons. Set it aside to cool.
6. Whisk the eggs into the sugar, beating until they are thoroughly incorporated. Whisk in the extract, if you’re using it. Add the blood orange juice and the orange oil, and then whisk in the cream.
7. Continuing with the whisk or switching to a large rubber spatula, gently stir in the dry ingredients in 3-4 additions; the batter will be smooth and thick. Finish by folding in the melted butter in 2-3 additions. Pour the batter into the prepared pans, smoothing the tops with a rubber spatula.
8. Bake for 55-60 minutes (if you make mini-loaves, they’ll bake in 30-40 minutes), or until a knife inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. (As soon as the cakes go in the oven, make the syrup). After about 30 minutes in the oven, check for the cakes for color — if they are browning too quickly, cover them lightly with foil tents.
9. Meanwhile, make the syrup: Stir the water, sugar and blood orange juice together in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the sugar melts, then bring to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, and pour the syrup into a heatproof bowl to cool.
10. When the cakes test done, transfer them to a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the pans and turning them right side up on the rack. Place the rack over a baking sheet lined with wax paper and, using a thin skewer, cake tester or thin-bladed knife, poke holes all over the cakes. Brush the cakes all over with the syrup, working slowly so that the cakes sop it up. Leave the cakes on the rack to cool to room temperature.

Spring vegetables in Parmesan broth with goat cheese ravioli

This was our main accompanied by a baguette..

2 hours. Serves 6

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups water

2 cloves garlic, sliced

1 1/2 to 2 ounces rinds from Parmigiano-Reggiano

Herb trimmings

Salt

2 dozen asparagus tips

1/2 pound sugar snap peas

Goat cheese ravioli or fresh pasta squares

2 tablespoons chopped chives

1 ounce freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1. In a soup pot, simmer the chicken broth, water, garlic, Parmesan rinds and herb trimmings until aromatic and flavorful, about 90 minutes. Strain and return to the soup pot.

2. In a wide pot, blanch the asparagus tips in plenty of rapidly boiling, generously salted water until just tender, about 3 minutes. Use a wire skimmer or slotted spoon to transfer them to an ice water bath to stop the cooking, then transfer to a bowl and set aside.

3. Cut the sugar snaps in half on a bias, then blanch them in the same way, stopping the cooking with the ice water bath and holding in a separate bowl. (The recipe can be prepared to this point up to 24 hours in advance and refrigerated until ready to use.)

4. When ready to serve, warm 6 shallow pasta bowls. Bring the Parmesan broth to a simmer, taste and correct seasoning with salt to taste.

5. Bring a large, wide pot of water to a boil. Cook the goat cheese ravioli or fresh pasta squares until the pasta is tender, 3 or 4 minutes. Divide the ravioli among the serving bowls. Warm the asparagus tips in the same pot of water and divide them among the pasta bowls. Warm the sugar snaps in the same pot of water and divide them among the pasta bowls. Sprinkle each bowl with chives and then ladle over roughly one-third cup of hot Parmesan broth. Sprinkle with a little grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and pass the remainder at the table.

Chocolate Baby

Gobsmacking goodness here...

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-proof-bakery-rec2-20120929,0,3196309.story

Please don't fail me now, buttercream

Oona made me make a cake today, so we stirred up our old fave from our Portland hood bakery, Baker and Spice.

Here be the results, our own Pink Cake. It actually turned out pretty well. Now I've got to get the leftovers out of the house...STAT!

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/foodday/index.ssf/2008/06/recipe_detail.html?id=8354

HB gateau, however homely

Not a cake fan, my Mr. Man. If he had to pick a favorite it'd be German chocolate. Still, I wasn't going to make his real faves, ie apple pie or  hot fudge sundaes. The chitlins want to sing and blow out candles--on a cake. Once a year, that's all I ask...ya gotta eat some cake.

If it looks a little lopsided and drippy, it is. David Lebovitz's recipe sounded above and beyond the usual recipe on back of the Baker's chocolate box, so I delved in confidently around noon today. Five hours later, the chocolate icing was still in too soft for piping, despite being refrigerated three hours. The construction was not so easy either, but usually the frosting hides such non-professional gaffes. Not a recipe for fearful baking types, the proof will be in the pudding, as per usual. But I for one never turn down a piece of cake, be it ever so homely.

 

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2005/09/german-chocolat-1/

Cake Alchemy

Baked it yesterday and frosted it today. The proof will be in the gateau, of course, but damn this cake looks good. I did a crumb coat for the first time, which made it much easier to frost. Now all that's needed is eight kids to dig in!

"Decorate and Bake," they said...

Oona has a birthday coming up, so we spent the day preparing. We cleaned the house, did the laundry and shopped for the meal. Our decorations are homespun and the cake is homemade. We shredded a plastic tablecloth for weatherproof ruffled streamers to hang outside. It's a yellow cake with fudge frosting, which will be made tomorrow. The recipe's from cake expert Jim Dodge and called for eight egg yolks. It's from a cookbook and not online. So sorry! Now I need a nap. Oh wait, it's almost time for dinner.

Thank you Mr. Beard...

James Beard grew up in Oregon with a Mama who instilled a love of all things delicious. This recipe for his mother's shortcake is the everloving bomb. 

The big trick here is adding hard-boiled egg yolks pushed thru a sieve, adding a velvet texture and golden hue. 

So good...even if mine did not as rise much as they should've. (methinks me baking powder is on its last-dated legs.) Even so, I know my go-to shortcake from now on.

 http://www.food52.com/blog/3564_james_beards_strawberry_shortcakes

Leftover Candy?

Halloween candy adds sweet alternative to milk shake recipes

By Janet K. Keeler, Times Food and Travel Editor
In Print: Wednesday, October 26, 2011

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In just a few days, many of you will likely be staring at a mountain of candy gathered by your trick-or-treating witches and pirates on Halloween.

Perhaps you are the type of person who conquers, divides and hides the sack of goodies. Maybe you take some to work or filch a few mini chocolate bars when Dorothy of Oz isn't looking. A bagful stowed in the freezer provides lunch-box treats for weeks.

This year, you can do all of that and still have plenty left over to make milk shakes. Just a few mini Heath bars dropped into the blender with vanilla ice cream and milk transform a simple delight into pure decadence.

And don't stop at Heath bars, though it's best to pause at sweet-and-sour gummy worms, which will gum up the blender blades. Bubble­ gum won't work well either, but just about every other miniconfection can be sufficiently ground in the blender to add flavor, color and texture. If your blender is short on power, smash the candy in the wrapper and then stir crumbs into the ice cream drink.

Some candies break apart more easily when frozen and brittle. And because candy lasts up to a year in the freezer, you'll have milk shake garnishes for a long time. To ensure freshness, store the candy in a freezer bag and push out as much air as you can before sealing.

Though candy milk shakes are made from kids' stuff, a splash or more of spirits can turn the drink into adult fare. Consider peppermint schnapps in a shake with Peppermint Patties or cream de cacao in anything with chocolate. For a real wallop, replace some of the milk with Bailey's Irish Cream for a Milky Way Shake or go half-and-half with milk and Kahlua that's mixed with chopped up Snickers and vanilla ice cream.

Always save some of the candy to garnish the top of the shakes.

Besides milk shakes, surplus Halloween candy (yes, there is such a thing) can be used in various other ways.

Some ideas:

• Consider donating candy to military personnel overseas. Some dentists do a buy-back program offering as much as $1 a pound and then send the candy to the troops through Operation Gratitude (operationgratitude.com) in Southern California. Another organization that sends care packages is Operation Shoebox (operationshoebox.com), which is based near Gainesville. Go to their websites for instructions, but be aware that hard candy, gum and gummy candies fare better than chocolate, which can melt.

• Many kinds of candy — Butterfinger, M&M's, Heath toffee bars — can be chopped and mixed in with cookie dough. Use the recipe for Toll House cookies on the back of Nestlé chocolate chips and substitute chopped candy for all or some of the chips.

• Chopped candy, such as peanut butter cups, can also be folded into cake or brownie batter before baking.

• A frosted chocolate cake will look even more special with a garnish of malted milk balls. If it's a layer cake, make sure you put some candy in the frosting between the layers. When making a Bundt cake, pour half the batter into the mold and scatter chopped candy evenly over it. Finish it off with the rest of the batter and bake.

• Stir Reese's Pieces — or other small, contained candies rather than chopped — into Rice Krispies treat mixture before spreading it in the pan to set.

• Save that candy corn — which is basically hardened marshmallow — to stir into your candied sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving.

• Heat red hots with bottled barbecue sauce, stirring until they melt. The sweet heat adds a pop.

• Save any colorful candies to decorate gingerbread houses.

• Drop caramels into hot coffee and stir until they dissolve for a DIY specialty coffee treat.

• And you can always take it to work, though you might incur the wrath of co-workers fighting their sweet-tooth temptation.

But before you do all that freezing, sending and baking, make everybody a milk shake. Ah, a Halloween to sip and savor, even through horrid plastic teeth.

Janet K. Keeler can be reached jkeeler@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8586.

 

A Poet after my own Heart (and Stomach)

October 19, 2011, 5:24 pm Emily Dickinson, Sweet Genius

By JEFF GORDINIER

Amherst College LibraryEmily Dickinson in an undated photo.

Whatever you happen to think about when you think about Emily Dickinson, it’s probably unlikely that what first leaps to mind is an image of the Belle of Amherst stuffing her face with cake.

In the public imagination, at least, this spectral titan of American poetry comes across as a figure of austerity, mystery, luminosity, seclusion. Somehow it’s hard to envision her even eating a meal, let alone taking delectable pleasure from it.

But as with many things about her, the truth is richer and more fascinating than the cliché. Emily Dickinson, it turns out, was totally into baking.

In fact, at a reception on Thursday evening in Battery Park City, New Yorkers will get to sample a slice of one of her favorite treats. Manuscripts, letters and fragments from the poet’s life are going on display at the Poets House, many for the first time, and among them is her handwritten, bare-bones recipe for coconut cake, which a local poetry collector and avid baker named Carolyn Smith is conjuring up for the event.

Ms. Smith has made six of the cakes, which she baked at 350 degrees for a little over an hour. Admittedly, she didn’t have a whole lot of data to go on; the recipe itself is really just a list of ingredients: 1 cup coconut, 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup milk, 2 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon soda and 1 teaspoon cream of tartar.

President and Fellows of Harvard College Emily Dickinson’s coconut cake recipe. Enlarge recipe »

“It looked like it was probably similar to a pound cake, so I treated it like a pound cake,” Ms. Smith, 69, said on the phone. “It’s a very dense cake, and it’s not too cloyingly sweet, which is nice.”

Just hearing about that coconut cake leads to a fresh perspective on how Emily Dickinson lived and worked. Pay a visit to the Web site of the Emily Dickinson Museum , and you’ll learn that the poet seemed to do a lot of her writing and thinking in the kitchen, even at one point scrawling stray lines of verse on a wrapper of Parisian baking chocolate.

“Emily Dickinson was known as quite an accomplished baker,” said Alexandra Mann, the publicity and marketing coordinator for Poets House. “She won a competition for her rye bread and was known to have often sent baked goods to friends and family for all sorts of occasions. In fact, some of the letters on view in this exhibition were sent along with baked delicacies that she made.”

Could it be? Did this woman whom we’ve been led to think of as a prim ascetic actually have a vibrant epicurean streak? “The tradition was that she and her friends would dip the coconut cake into a little sherry,” Ms. Smith said. “So that’s what we’re doing tomorrow night.”