Sunday June 7th: Squash and Tomato Gratin

Every once in a while you just (well I just) get the craving to visit the farmers market. I don't usually remember my camera (like this week) I don't have a shopping list (ever), but sometimes you find what you want.

I did have an idea in mind: Tomatoes. Unfortunately attending an early summer farmers market at 11am doesn't get you the choice selection of Early Girl tomatoes. I did happen upon some above average quality (below average price) on-the-vine organic tomatoes, which was a start.

To avoid being long-winded, I also found some Thyme, Squash, and already had panko and Parmesan.

I decided due to the less than awesome nature of the tomatoes I would not make anything caprese. The squash I would utilize in the normal way. If you do not know, following is the (proper) way to handle watery vegetables {squash, eggplant, cucumber}.

To prepare watery vegetables for cooking:

1. Cut vegetable into uniform slices (regularly 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick)

2. Toss vegetables with 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt (depending on the volume of vegetables to start this will vary, 1/2 teaspoon is for about 3/4 to 1 pound starting, more than apound, add a little bit more).

3. Place vegetables in colander over bowl or in sink.

4. Let vegetables leech liquid for at least 1/2 hour, the longer the better... I usually try for 45 minutes to one hour.

5. Press vegetables between doubel layer of paper towels (hard), to press out nay remaining liquid.

And that's it! It seems like a lot of work to prepare vegetables, but in reality you would be slicing them already, and all you're doing is slicing them earlier and pushing down on them. The results are worth the .o5 units of extra effort.

Now, I have another method to handle less-than-perfect tomatoes, or tomatoes that are goign to be cooked in general (I say "I have" loosely, this is probably someone elses method that I have read and used and tweaked for my own needs). It is as follows:

1. Slice tomatoes into 1/4 inch sections.

2. Lay tomato slices onto a doubel layer of paper towels (I usually do this on a large rimmed baking sheet)

3. Sprinkle 1/2-3/4 teaspoon of salt over the slices of tomato (depending on volume of tomato used).

4. Let Tomato stand for 30-40 minutes.

5. Push down on each tomato section with a double layer of paper towels.

Okay, so there is the secret to having flavorful squash and tomato to use in any recipe. Applying it to an easy side-dish shouldn't be tough. I had enough of the produce to last for two days, and threw it together into one side and one main dish for about 12 bucks (main dish will be posted tomorrow). The side dish is as follows.

1. Grease a 9X11 oven safe baking dish.

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

3. Arrange a single layer of prepared (see above) squash along the bottom of the dish, overlapping slightly on edges a'la scalloped potatoes.

4. Drizzles with Olive Oil and sprinkle with about 1/2 tablespoon fresh Thyme (or not, the Thyme is optional, the Olive oil is pretty essential)

5. Arrange a single layer of tomatoes over the top, overlapping edges as with the squash.

6. Drizzle with more olive oil (don't overdo it!) and more Thyme (if desired).

7. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

8. While it is baking, combine one cup Panko and one cup shredded Parmesan. Add one TB of Olive Oil.

9. After 43 minutes (I always take the difference of 40-45) slide out the vegtables and sprinkle with the (copious) break and cheese topping.

10. Let bake another 10-12 (11) minutes until topping is golden and crunchy.

Remove and impress your girlfriend as I did, or eat it alone. Or Impress husbands, wives, etc... It's good, they'll like it. Promise.

Cook's Garlic Potato Soup and more ACME Bread

This potato soup began as a suggestion from Christian at my favorite fruit stand in Davis (Petrick Produce - off I-80 at the Petrick Rd exit next to the Chevron) while we were checking out some potatos. He had read the recipe in the (insert issue here) of Cook's Magazine and suggested we pick up the 2 lbs of russet and red potatos and 2 and a 1/2 BULBS of GARLIC and give it a try. On our way into SF we also decided that more ACME bread would be needed to complete the meal so instead of braving Monday afternoon traffic in Berkeley, we took a trip over the Golden Gate and decided to take the MUNI down to the SF location.





San Francisco HOURS
Mon, Tue, Wed: 6:20am- 7:30pm, Thursday: 6:20am - 8:00pm
Friday: 6:20am - 7:30pm
Saturday & Sunday: 8am–7pm
PHONE: (415) 288-2978
Marketplace Shop #15View Location

ACME Bread (SF) is no where near as quaint. But, it is located in the Ferry building surrounded by many other scrumptious specialty food shops which we plan to take advantage of for an upcoming dinner. We arrive at ACME just in time. Even without much selection we were able to find a simply amazing fresh whole wheat walnut loaf (see picture above), and another GIANT whole wheat round.

After a quick stop on the way home at the Church St. Safeway, we decided that our fresh ingredients should come from the little local produce stand across the street (go here for an excellent assortment of fresh produce & dirt cheap herbs and spices that don't come in bottles).

Golden Produce
172 Church Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 431-1536

So from here on out Christian actually followed the recipe (he made sure I knew that), which included simmering TWO WHOLE BULBS OF GARLIC for 35 min in the broth. Yum! The bulbs of garlic were removed and the cloves mashed. We added 1/2 the mashed cloves back into the soup and reserved the other half to use on our bread. The potatoes were added, simmered until cooked, and then pureed with our make-shift blender (electric mixer) until only a few chunks remained. Fresh thyme and a 1/2 cup of cream was added at the last min.

The soup was really good, and even though we don't know anything about wine pairing (YET) the Robert Mondavi Private Selection 2005 Chardonnay was a darn close to perfect paring.

Serves: probably 6-8 if used as a 1st course, about 4 if used as the main course. Irish potato farmers probably lived off of this.

Recommendations/Alterations: Soup can be more like chowder after pureeing, we added a bit of water to thin it out. Saved over night in the fridge makes this soup into something more like garlic mashed potatoes. Either eat it all at once, or thin it out with some water upon reheating.

Cook's Recipe: (to come)

ACME Bread Company & Mussles from Pasta Pomodoro

After watching a guest speaker on the Cal campus talk about the white man ravaging Native American cultures, we found ourselves hungry. After sushi, frozen yogurt, and the purchase of two Oranginas and a brownie it still somehow seemed like a good idea to indulge in some culinary perusing.
After reading Jeffrey Steingartens "The Man Who Ate Everything" it was simultaneously and irreversibly stuck in our minds that Jeffrey Steingarten has the best job in the world. In that, while doing research for an article he wrote, he studied under the most lauded and celebrated bread maker in the world: (insert name that I forgot here) who operates the ACME bakery out of Berkeley CA.



Upon walking in the smells of freshly baked bread overwhelmed one of us (the other was suffering form a cold which resulted in cranky behavior and a highly ineffective olfactory orifice) and the beautifully browned and shaped loaves graced our eyes like fine art. Really incredibly tasty fine art. I was struck with indecision... Brown Loaf? Sweet Baguette? Sour Baguette? Ah Ha!! Sour Batard! Perfect!



On the drive home, my already distended belly screaming for me to tear off a piece of Batard and have at it right there in the comforts of mid-nineties Ford-made heaven, it was mentioned that such a fine loaf should not be muddled by anything but the finest of bread-dipping accompaniment. Upon discussion (and a walk on a pier) it was determined that a garlic and herb white wine sauce, typically found at fine seafood establishments embellishing mollusks was called for. The mollusk of choice: Mussels.
Our foray into Mussels in San Francisco began early in my residence here as a brief (and fictitious) evening spent pretending we could afford really good seafood (that was not made at home). We planned on pairing our fine loaf of bread with an appetizer of Mussels from a faux-bayou establishment called "PJ's Oyster Bed": a surprisingly upscale seafood bar and grill that serves "garlic and herb skillet roasted mussels" that, if I am not mistaken, made me conjour up images of Robuchon slaving over pots and pans before finally kissing his fingertips with pleasure as he savored a mere teaspoon of delectable sauce. Unfortunately, PJ's is closed on Mondays.
After walking the local restaurant district, and having several possibilities shot down ("I will not dip MY bread into CURRY and COCONUT sauce") we finally (Erika finally) found a place that served amazingly, white wine, garlic and herb mussels.

That'd be Pasta Pomodoro:
San Francisco - Irving
816 Irving Street
San Francisco, CA 94122
tel: (415) 566-0900
(thank you very much -- yes... I did find it :)

After warming the bread, savoring a few Mussels, and deftly dodging several semi-skilled parries about who actually found the mussels, I dipped my first piece of ACME bread into the broth and... It was well worth it.
Not to be melodramatic, and not to simply follow those who wrote the books i have read, it was just plain great bread. In fact, once the Mussels and the broth and the butter were gone, I took two pieces and ate them dry. That finished the loaf. Roughly twelve Mussels, and a LOAF of bread.
Yeah, that HAS to be good bread.

Chicken Dinner WISHBONE!

We finally broke the wishbone from the chicken dinner we had several weeks ago.

I won... but I'm not telling my wish :)

Sunset Supermarket

An AWESOME grocery store!

sunday night roast chicken - January 7th, 2007

a little roast chicken with one of C's famous sauces. also, rice pilaf from a box (Near East - Garlic Chicken), an unsuccessful batch of potatos, and a green salad with feta, pistachios, cucumber, and a mustard seed dressing.



FRESH INGREDIENTS:
chicken (1 whole)
apples
garlic
rosemary
mixed greens
pistachios
feta

ten tons of sushi - January 6th, 2007

We made more sushi then we could ever eat; spicy tuna, tuna, california, and tempura rolls. All made with tools given to me for Christmas. We also visted Sunset Market for most of the fresh ingredients. See below for a revised list of ingredients for our second attempt.



MAKES: way too much sushi (16 rolls)

FRESH INGREDIENTS:
fresh tuna (.5 lbs)
shrimp (.25 lbs)
imitation crab (1 package)
flying fish roe (1 package)

cucumber (2)
avacado (2)
watercress (1 bunch)
green onion (1 bunch)
nori (1 package)
wasabi (make fresh in small quantity)

REUSUABLE INGREDIENTS:
Peanut oil
tempura batter
white and black sesame seeds
rice wine vinegar
wasabi
soy sauce

RECIPES:

"unpublished world of mouth recipe for sushi rice" (courtsey of a girl who works with Christian): here we used short grain rice cooked in a $10 dollar rice cooker from Walgreens on Sutter in downtown SF. Let the rice cool for 10 min (about). Poured it out onto a sheet pan covered in foil, then C poured the traditional mixture of rice wine vinegar, sugar, and salt, while I fanned with a 39 cent fan bought in Chinatown earlier that evening.

*spicy tuna: fresh tuna, chili sauce, green onion

*crab salad: imitation crab meat, mayo, chili sauce

*tempura: tempura shrimp, cucumber, etc. (we fried some - oil needs to be hotter)

CHANGES: (fewer rolls)