Some dishes are pretty sacrosanct; the lack of even one ingredient will cause me to change plans since it’s not worth it. Others are more malleable by nature, or I haven’t yet honed my understanding of the definitive version (relatively speaking, of course) and so I feel license to experiment. In this case, Ma Po Tofu, which we love, gets done differently every time as long as pork, tofu, and peas around- although I did…
cookblog Posts
First, the carrot ice cream. All the kids came with me to the garden first thing in the morning and we pulled a nice bunch of different colors. Chopped and steamed with a pinch each of Vietnamese 5-spice and cayenne, then puréed, pushed through a tamis, stirred into a nice custard, and then frozen once chilled, the result was a really good accompaniment to the peach tart I made later when everyone was out sightseeing.…
Christine’s family is here for the weekend, and we made fresh fettucine with pesto from our basil, using walnuts as well because we were low on pine nuts and Nettle Meadow fromage blanc in place of parmigiano. Ethan, who is 10, rolled out most of the pasta and did a fine job. All the kids were excited to make it from scratch. We had a huge salad, and the sausages that remained from the night…
Chris and Sirkka joined us after a nice swim and visit to the store for some fish- tuna and salmon. They brought beets, greens, and cooked turnips, and daikon pickles from their garden. We made a salad from ours. Sirkka quartered the beets and roasted them wrapped in foil; we tossed them in Banyuls vinegar, salt, and a little olive oil. Chris made beet greens in dashi with garlic and chopped cooked turnips. I made…
This actually started in my studio, where I noticed that I need another large tomato can for paint thinner. So I decided to make pasta tonight, but we were out of pasta. Thus a trip to the store, where they have this stuff called cheese, in this case taleggio and the local fromage blanc that can become so very many things. And it was raining today. And so the ingredients spoke, and dinner was penne…
I try as much as possible to be open to the confluence of ingredients, influences, and the day in question when making dinner; the best examples of my cooking seem to reflect all three in equal measure and still remain original, nourishing, and yummy. Tonight was a decent example. Our friend Leanne emailed to thank us for the giant zucchini we gave them yesterday and said she had made fritters- latkes of sorts- with potatoes…
Ground bison sautéed with red onion and spices, a salsa of more red onion, local tomato, lemon juice, cilantro, avocado, and baby cucumbers from the garden on nice spelt tortillas with a bit of rewarmed brown rice. A nice, chilly 2003 Selbach-Oster Bernkasteler Badstube riesling auslese did nicely with the spices. Quick, easy, and damn yummy.
This arresting sculptural presence is in fact a hog cheek, cured for a week in salt, pepper, garlic, and thyme, and hung from a piece of 2 x 12 left from making the garden beds inside the metal mesh wastebasket from my office (which I washed.) Now it sits in the crawl space under the house for a week to dry a bit, and then it’s guanciale. Next to it is a 5 liter crock…
We went over to Liz’s house for a garden-clearing dinner; even though it was just the three of us it gave us an excuse to cut a ton of salad and kale. I smoked two more small chickens and slow-cooked a bunch of kale kraut style with a bit of smoked chicken broth and lots of vinegar, plus mustard, fenugreek, coriander, and cumin seeds for about two hours. I also chopped a head of radicchio…
A quick one tonight, but with some good flavors. First, shiitake caramelized in a spoon of the smoked chicken fat, then I threw in green beans and let them green and soften a bit, followed by a glug of Shao Xing rice wine and a drop of sesame oil. Then, in the same wok, I crisped up some tofu, added some red onion to soften, and deglazed with rice vinegar. To finish, a dollop of…